I Used to be Invincible

On the way to a doctors appointment Daniel and I witnessed a tragic pedestrian accident. A very young teenager was struck by a car. I watched it happen in slow motion. As if the world sped around and traffic lights blinked and then suddenly everything parted in the middle. I felt a bit of tunnel vision where I saw a child who didn't look both ways. I saw it. I heard it. So did her mother, who was standing right beside her.

We stopped immediately beside her and I called 911. Daniel leaped out to help. He just completed a CPR class, too. But there wasn't anything he could do. He told people not to move her. It became obvious that there wasn't anything the paramedics could do either. I sat in the car with Lucy and tried not to see everything. I turned up the music and tried not to hear her mother's sorrow. Perhaps the hardest part. Beyond the shock and horror that everyone felt so deeply, it was her mother's sorrow that filled our hearts. I held Lucy's hand when she started to cry.

I used to be invincible. I heard of these horrible things. I watched the news. But it could never happen to me.

Now I am not invincible.

You are not invincible.

Despite my youth, I've seen more than my fair share of tragedy. I won't make a list for you. It's a mental trench that must be navigated carefully and only when I've packed the proper gear.

I don't have an eloquent way to plead with people to stop rushing around and stop with the texting and talking and makeup application and general distracted driving. Not because that's what caused this particular accident, but because it's so obviously unsafe.

I have the same plea for those drowning in addiction. It's not okay. It's so obviously unsafe. So preventable.

It's just a choice.

Anything can happen and it does and every child I bring in to the world brings with it as much fear as it does joy.

And so what I really want to say, to all of you, even those reading this that I will never know, is that I love you.

Daniel blogs about it here.