Gone, gone, gone

Gone! Gone. Gone. Despite my Norton's hard at work, a horrible virus hijacked my computer, and except for a few files and photos which took hours to download because of the durn varmint inside my machine, Buck and I had to start over from scratch. The good news is that all those lost files of writing are still inside my head. The bad news is that some of that writing I'll need again may take a good long time to get back down in a file.
I tried not to cry as Buck asked me, "Which files do you want me to try and save? And which aren't so important?" Forced 'puter decluttering. I only chose about 10 documents, including one I've been working on for publication for a long while, and it took a very long time to recover each one. My songwriting husband had his recent work burned on a cd which was such a blessing. He told me those were huge files, and I knew most likely he would not have had time to recover them all before the virus utterly destroyed our computer altogether.
I'm taking this as a metaphor for life. I've always said, "I can walk away from everything and not be bothered when it comes to things I own." Today I had to put my money where my mouth is. I had a few minutes to decide essentials and hope for the best to keep them. Whatever was lost, I won't know until I try to find it again. There was simply too much to sort as time marched toward destruction. It was only words, files, work, thoughts. Just yesterday, a family a few miles away had to walk away from a housefire without a mother and some children. A few days before that, a boy shot the principal and assistants at a school in my area of the world. One of them died. Did that make national news? His family won't have a dad walking in the door for supper anymore.
So today, I kissed my husband a little longer, and hugged my children a little tighter. My losses are far outweighed by my abundant life.