Happy birthday to my sister

Today is my sister's birthday.  She would have been 53.  But time has stood still and she is forever 9.  Some years this day goes by without a glance until a day or two later.  For some reason it was often on my mind this year. Not a significant birthday (ending in a 0 or 5).  My thoughts have been more along the lines of how life can change in a moment...or even less...and the world is not the same.  Lives are changed.  Futures are changed.  And yet not.  Circumstances of life do change us.  Change our course; change our attitudes.  But it does not have to be so.  God redeems.  We are so much more in tune to the needs and challenges of early death on a family.  Would it have made a difference in the outcome of the lives of my brothers?  Questions that can never be answered.  So we continue to travel the road before us.  Praying for my brothers to allow God to work at redeeming their lost years shrouded in pain and self recrimination.