Word Count:\u00a0 251<\/p>\n

When his first child was born, his first son, he was thousands of miles away. Doing the right thing for humanity, helping rebuild a nation torn to strips of thin fragments by civil war. The people, broken but shining like sequins on a black velvet earth.<\/p>\n

When his second came screaming her way into the world he was an ocean away in Japan. An earthquake, a resulting tsunami, a shoreline battered by water and the air layered in death.<\/p>\n

He was there when his oldest hit high school. Missed his daughter\u2019s first steps, first dance recital, and so many more.<\/p>\n

Was hunkered down as the bombs blew the buildings around him. Missed the bombs and the crash of his son\u2019s first car.<\/p>\n

Flew back in for a month after the funeral. Flew back out where he felt people needed him more. What is one, when compared to so many?<\/em> he explained to himself.<\/p>\n

The divorce papers reached him too late to contest. Jungle travel is slow in the best of times, mail often lost. His daughter was hit by a drunk driver on her first day of school. No airports within miles, no roads left to get there. He cried and screamed out but the next day took care of the wounded and hungry and hurt.<\/p>\n

It came time when he no longer could help them. He himself damaged and empty of pain. He came back to a place he\u2019d thought of as home. But home was as barren as he.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Word Count:\u00a0 251 When his first child was born, his first son, he was thousands of miles away. Doing the right thing for humanity, helping rebuild a nation torn to strips of thin fragments by civil war. The people, broken … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,15],"tags":[25,24],"class_list":["post-1440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-100-days-2012","category-horror","tag-100-days-2012","tag-horror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1441,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440\/revisions\/1441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}