Crash and burn...and rise again.

Updated 5/23

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She was the most beautiful woman with the most beautiful heart -- so down-to-earth; innocent, kind and generous in every way. So different than the selfish/self-absorbed "worldly" woman I had been with before. I couldn't help but love her. Like all relationships there were ups and downs but the love we had for each other never wavered.

And then a demon, a monster -- a memory of a molestation from her childhood -- put her into a tailspin and a world of unbearable madness; our love became a victim of a life-changing crash and burn.

But even the worst things that we've somehow been able to live through/survive eventually fade in time; the sun eventually breaks through even the darkest clouds. It took more than a decade but the exit wound of our breakup finally healed.

Fifteen years later she is out there somewhere, and, so I've been told, happy and in a relationship. And me? Out of this carnage/life altering train-wreck I have received the greatest of gifts/blessings -- a now 10 year-old beautiful daughter who without our breakup would have never existed.

The life-lesson I have learned from this nightmarish roller-coaster ride? Out of pain, good things can still sometimes come.