When I was very young, I would sometimes get a feeling that “something bad” was going to happen overnight, and it made me afraid to go to sleep. In my mind, this “something bad” was often a house fire, and it terrified me.

In the early hours of this morning, I lost a cousin to a house fire. We don’t know much of the details right now, but apparently she was just steps away from an escape when she- I hope– succumbed to the smoke.

This has devastated me today.  I feel so much for my Aunt- my cousin’s grandmother- who lost her home, all the tangible memories of her late husband, and most importantly, her oldest granddaughter. Is there a point when life are too much to bear?  Is this one of those instances when my Aunt will learn she has more courage than she ever knew simply because she wakes up tomorrow morning and puts one foot in front of the other?

Am I supposed to take from this some grateful life lesson of living each day to its maximum? I don’t think so.  My cousin just lived her life. Although, I am glad that 6 or so hours before she died, what she posted on Facebook was a video that made her laugh. No matter how much terror she must have felt in the last moments of her life, I’m glad that when things were ordinary, what she did made her laugh.

I have no life lessons to offer from this. Only the observation that sometimes life sucks. And when it does, I try to remember love triumphs.