I was working my way through "War and Remembrance" tonight when I came across a scene that was particularly poignant, even though it didn't have a lot to do with the main plot.

Rhoda Henry, the long-time wife of the main character, is having trouble sleeping, so she goes downstairs and puts a record on the phonograph. While she smokes a cigarette and looks at faded pictures from when she was a young wife, she listens to a scratchy recording of a song she loved when she was still young and full of dreams. At this point in the story, she has lost one of her two sons in the war and her marriage is falling apart.

You can almost see her thinking that things really didn't turn out the way she always thought they would.

[caption id="attachment_1164" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Rhoda with Palmer Kirby"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/402954.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1164" title="402954" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/402954-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>[/caption]

Do they for anyone?

Does anyone reach 50 anymore and look back to see the steps of their life lined up exactly the way they planned them when they were 17?

When I look at the lives of my closest friends, I'm pretty certain that most of them didn't quite wind up with what they planned.

I have one friend who may be the most talented person I know. He works as hard as anyone I know, but he hasn't had a full-time job with benefits for more than 10 years. I have written this before, but I'll say it again. Three of my four closest friends have gone through personal bankruptcies. Nobody plans for that.

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