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August 03, 2006
Hold them close
Tragedy is unfortunately a part of the news everyday, but there was one tragedy yesterdaythat really stopped me in my tracks and left me longing to snuggle with my family. A woman with two boys, ages three and one, along with her mother, were killed in a horrible car accident on the Indiana tollway. It's the same tollway we were driving on just five days ago. Her husband said that the last thing he said to all of them before he went to work was "I love you," and as he went to the car one of his sons chased after him saying, "I love you, Daddy."
(stab stab stab to the heart)
I like to think of myself as a functional fatalist. I know we're all going to die, but growing up I always had a plan of what I would do if someone close to me died. These scenarios actually only played around my Mom, which makes sense since she was (and still is) the sun to my silly little orbiting moon. Where would I be when I found out? Who would tell me? Where would I go live? How would I tell people? Would I say something at the funeral (I have a silly brain, stay with me here, folks)? Als an adult, I can look back at little Janna and can totally understand why I did it. It was part security/ part pure paranoia. I think I thought that if I hada plan in place, I can make it through or at least have a script to follow. And honestly, the excercise of planning was so innate, it just would pop up in my mind and I would play through the scenario, then tuck it back into my subconscious for another day.
All of this planning is burned into my brain, but as I got older, went to college, became an 'adult', the planning changed a bit. I still think about it with my Mom sometimes, but not in the detail that I did as a child. The newer thing, really, is going through the planning for what would happen if something happened to me. I can't even 'go there' in thinking about John or the kids. My brain, luckily, won't let the same planning process happen as it did as when I was a child. I want Gus and Eli to grow up with both parents bugging them.
Okay. Anyway. I'll stop. I'm not frozen, these crazy things just make me savor every single look, laugh, hug, struggle, tickle... Tell your peeps you love them, even when they make you crazy. That's the good stuff.
Posted by janna at August 3, 2006 10:20 PM