Absolute Truths

There's an old saying: the only certainties in life are death and taxes.

I disagree, to an extent. While it is true that no one gets out of this world alive and the Internal Revenue Service can be fanatical about extracting the government's pound of flesh, I believe there's a few more certainties that can be added to the list of absolute truths.

Number one, in my book, anyway, is that there is nothing guaranteed to anyone. No one controls what happens even the very next second. You may not even finish reading this sentence. Life can end just that quickly.

You never stop being a parent, ever. I don't care how old your kids get, you always worry about them. It's just a natural occurrence. It's unavoidable. To be sure, there are cases of parents abandoning their children but, in my view, if they can do that, they weren't parents in the truest sense of the word in the first place. If they don't care about their kids they should have never had them to begin with. My first wife, all she wanted was to have a family, to raise and nurture them, guide them into adulthood. Then one morning she got out of bed and passed out; I thought she'd died right there on the kitchen floor, right in front of me. The rescue squad took her to the hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery.

Unknown to us, she had endometriosis; she was pregnant but the fertilized embryo had started to grow in one of the Fallopian tubes, rupturing it and causing severe internal bleeding. We later went to see fertility specialists in Cleveland, who told us she couldn't bear children. It destroyed her, changed her, and I later made a bad decision, too, one I've had to live with through the decades. That's on me, my fault. I wasn't the man then that I am today.

I don't blame her for hating me. Carrying hate around with you, though, will eat your insides away. That lesson was learned firsthand, too.

The point is, the world is full of couples more than deserving of bringing life into this world, yet there are those who have no business having babies but pop them out like an auto assembly line anyway.

Life, you see, is not fair. Not at all. Add that one to the list, too. One of my peeves is hearing people, especially some of the younger generation, complain about 'fairness'. As much as the civilized world makes laws to foment equality and fairness, the truth is the opposite will always exist, no matter our efforts or how much we wish for its elimination. Life isn't fair and the sooner people come to terms with that fact and move past it, the better off they'll be. You adapt, improvise and overcome challenges and obstacles.

The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr once had a dream; I wish it would come true.

In that same light, you're going to make mistakes and bad decisions in life. You are, after all, human. Learn the lessons of those mistakes, remember them so they're not repeated. There's only been one man, the Son of Man, who passed through this world clean, unsoiled, and pure.

 He was crucified for it.

Another one that comes to mind: there is absolute evil in the world. Always has been, clear back to when Cain killed his brother. Mankind has taken great strides to counter evil but still it flourishes. All you have to do is pick up a newspaper or turn on the evening news and it smacks you in the face, from the senseless murder down the street to the violent armed conflicts fought by great armies across oceans and continents. It will remain that way until evil and savageness are terminated and, according to my Bible, that day will come.

Lastly, it is an absolute truth that not everyone knows the meaning of the word 'responsibility'. Nowadays no one wants to take responsibility for their actions or decisions; they'll slip, slide and twist facts in order to deflect a lack of responsibility on their part, choosing to blame a plethora of deficiencies of character and common sense for what they do.

To this old, retired cop, those are absolute truths of life.