If my grandfather hadn’t gotten out of the family business of mining coal…he wouldn’t have joined the Merchant Marines, ending up in Detroit where he met and married my grandmother, and they wouldn’t have had my father who had health issues requiring a warm and dry climate which made them move to southern California where my father grew up and met and married my mom. And I wouldn’t have been born in San Bernardino where my youngest and best sister was also born and where my 8th grade drama teacher got me started in a career which later – after much family kerfuffle – took me to San Francisco where I met my bestest oldest friend and then to New York where I met Tony and Marna and Arnold and my now ex-husband who I’m still quite fond of and for whom I moved to Amsterdam, where I met my Dutch family and tribe and godchildren, who I couldn’t leave behind without breaking my heart when I realized the Netherlands wouldn’t be my permanent happy place, which realization made me move only as far as Scotland (instead of all the way back to New York or even California) so as to be happy yet still close enough to love and be loved by said Dutch family and tribe and godchildren.
So because my grandfather got out of the coal industry. I have my sister, my career, my bestest oldest friend, Tony, Marna and Arnold, my now ex-husband who I’m still quite fond of, my Dutch family and tribe and godchildren, and I live in my happy place and I’m…happy.
See what can happen when just one person gets out of coal? Maybe we should all try it.
Donna DuCarme 
What a wonderful and completely different way to view the consequences – mostly unintended – of divestiture from fossil fuels! We never think of the benefits and wonders that we cannnot now imagine that would come about – in addition to hopefully maintaining the atmosphere and our natural environment, I mean. Well done.
I was in what we both understood after two years was a bad marriage but we genuinely respected each other and tried to work it out. We couldn’t but I stayed long enough, ten years, to have two have sons and left when the younger one was two years old.
Today, I have a loving wife of 20 years (whom if I had not married, I would never have met you) and I still have two sons, 37 and 35, who are both terrific young men. My younger son, very happily married, has given me a granddaughter who is the happiest baby I’ve ever seen. He said he believes in divorce because he knows his life has been much better off because of it. I still get on well with my first wife and although the marriage really was not a good one, I don’t regret a minute of it because of what it yielded.
So, Donna, I thoroughly understand what you are saying. It felt back then like I was walking into a black hole but just the other day, my older son told me that I am the happiest and most contented person he’s ever known. I was blown away by that but upon further consideration, he may be right.
Dear Rick,
Thank you for sharing your story. The journeys we take are often unexpected, and I truly believe we tend to end where we belong. And sometimes that involves a painful process of letting go. For me, and my grandfather, one kind of letting go – or divestment – and for you another. Glad to hear it has worked out so well for you and yours. And thank your wife for me, for being the reason we met! xd