A new perspective

Accidents happen every day. Cars are smashed, sometimes people hurt. Yesterday, on a road not far from here, one I drive at least once a week, three cousins were on their way to the county fair. They never got there. Two were killed. A 13 year old boy and a 10 year old girl. My daughter was classmates with the boy. The whole of our small community is shaken.

As hard as it is to lose someone, it's harder when it's someone young. I can't help but worry and pray for the one survivor, the driver of the car yesterday. We've all done tremendously stupid things in our lives. Most of us live on to laugh about them without being haunted by them. Just this summer at a family get together, my aunts, uncles and cousins all stood around talking about some of the truly brainless things we did. One involved fire and gasoline, another an old gun found in a barn, another the pool out by the springhouse. Truly, a few of us shouldn't have survived. We did lose a teen in our family to a car accident many years ago. My uncle was the youngest brother. He wasn't one of the lucky ones to live through something stupid. Neither was the driver yesterday. I only hope she is able to get through so the family doesn't lose all three from that car crash yesterday.

Is it good luck for some of us, bad for others, or something else? I've seen very interesting and mind teasing things in my life, put with the skills of a writer, and it seems so designed, like a plot of a book. Seemingly stupid things, totally unrelated can create a reaction or action that causes something else, something that in hindsight just had to happen, even if it was horrible. So I'm reminded of a little card I found in a book given to me by my dad. Simply: There is a reason. Some people refuse to believe it, some hang onto it for all their sanity. Myself, I'm just here for the experiences, for whatever reason.

So today my girls got extra big hugs, and I truly hope my middle daughter meant it when she said "you just have to get a perspective on death" - I always thought she was an old-soul, wise beyond her years. Or maybe my trilogy really made an impression on her because, as she says, they were needed somewhere else, they learned and did what they needed to do here. It was time to go.