Monday, May 02, 2011

Too Soon

Well wow I've had a bad couple of days. Or more accurately, there has BEEN a lot of bad the last couple of days. Yesterday I found out that a guy I went to church with in high school and with whom my younger sister was pretty good friends died in a car accident, probably due to drunk driving, though the details aren't clear yet. He was twenty five years old, but all I can conjure up in my mind are pictures of a blond, smiling kid about fifteen years old, cracking jokes while we road the bus downtown each Sunday to pick up kids for church. He was such a sweetheart, and now he's just gone. Not here.

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This afternoon, Jim learned that one of the girls from the soccer team he coached a few years ago was found dead yesterday, under suspicious circumstances. She was nineteen years old. And now she's gone. Not here.

Sometimes I feel like by having children I have basically bought myself a ticket to inevitable heartbreak at some point. Stuff like this makes me want to bubble wrap my kids and lock them in the house for the rest of their lives. I am so sad that these young lives are over, but the ones I am really torn up for are their families, for their parents. For their mothers, the women who still remember what it felt like to have those babies kick and jump inside them and who are now living out their worst nightmare: burying the child that they once delivered and cradled in their arms. God. I just can't imagine. How do you keep living when your heart is in shreds like that? I know you do, but just... how?

Really puts everything I was planning to post about- scratches on the wall, marker on the carpet, poop in the big-boy underwear- all into perspective. They can tear my house apart and I swear I'll watch it with a smile if they could just promise me to stay alive forever and always.

9 comments:

Marie Green said...

Oh, that is too soon, on both accounts. I worry so much about teens and car accidents. I'm so glad my girls are still little enough to need me to drive them every where!

I'm so sorry, friend. Makes us all appreciate the mundane, doesn't it?

Jen @ Rolling Through Looneyville said...

So sorry to read that... life is fleeting and I choose to ignore that as much as I can.

What you said about having kids is so so true. I don't want them to grow up, because that crazy world just gets scarier. And I have to let them go out and be part of it.

*sigh*

Jen @ Rolling Through Looneyville said...

I read your entry, then I read this. Good read http://www.sortacrunchy.net/sortacrunchy/2011/04/the-hope-that-is-ours.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2FTyhx+%28SortaCrunchy2.0%29

Erin said...

Ugh. So terrible. I cannot imagine it. I will be thinking of their families.

Nik-Nak said...

That last paragraph is amazing and I was thinking pretty much the same thing only a few hours ago. Just stay my sweet, safe little baby girl and I'll do whatever I need to do.

Tess said...

I remember reading the comments on a post about whether to have children or not, and Swistle (I think?) commented that logically, she could not recommend having kids, because the risk is just too great. Obviously, logic doesn't always win out in the decision process, but it's so true that by having kids you put yourself irreversibly at risk for the worst human experience imaginable. Uff.

So sorry about this.

B said...

I'm so sorry for the loss of those special people :( Since becoming a mother I can't even watch the news. Seriously. TV shows can haunt me forever. I just can't seem to escape scary kid-related stories.

Michelle said...

So sorry. I can't even imagine. Hugs.

d e v a n said...

Oh, so sorry. :( I, too, often feel like parenthood is just a guarantee of heart break.