It had been a rough patch, those last few months. Maybe though, things were beginning to look up. I had a new job, The Runtyun’s mother seemed to have a good position. The Runtyun herself, was my pride and smile. Even the space shuttle, Columbia was completing another successful mission. Little did I know, like the shuttle, my life was going to crash and burn.
Like most people, I did not really know what the shuttle was doing up there in space, nor did I really understand the calamity my life was crashing into. The shuttle was coming down that day and I was watching T.V., idly passing time before work while waiting for my babies' mother to come home and take the dayshift while I worked away at the new job.
She was late, very late, the shuttle had gone missing and I was missing from my new job. The Runtyun was sleeping away, I could hear her soft breathing while updates were coming in. I would go over to her to try to find calm from her sweet and innocent slumber despite the inner flame burning my life away.
In a way I was a little luckier than the rest of the world, I had an idea where she was and it was not at work, while every one else could only wonder and worry about the missing shuttle.
Yes, it was ten years ago, on the same day the shuttle Columbia developed a hole in it’s wing disintegrating at 17000 miles per hour, 
though my life took longer to crumble and burn. Yet like the Phoenix, well maybe not as dramatically, I was able to re-incarnate into a better person, a more mature parent.
Now, I am the man and father I am supposed to be.
