When mortality comes knocking at your door and makes you shape up

I've been kind of pissed off at the world lately. Mostly for things that are no one's fault but my own. I thought those kinds of crazy emotions were supposed to become non-existent after the high school years. Apparently not.

Anyway, I was picking up the kids playroom while J was playing with the kids in the living room. Suddenly he asked me, "Okay, what's going on?"

Trying to deflect, not sure how to answer, because although I wasn't in a stellar mood, I'd been normal because I'm too big to throw fits in front of my own children, I replied with, "Um, where?"

After a few seconds J said, "Whoa, something is going on." He peered further out the front window and then announced he was going outside. Of course, the babes and I followed.

When we walked to the end of our porch my 2.5 year old promptly said, "Holy shit!" She took the words right out of my mouth.

In front of our neighbor’s house, in the street, a red car was stopped dead in its tracks. A 30+ ft tree having fallen on top of it. The entire passenger’s side was smashed, pretty close to the ground. The driver’s side was badly damaged, but not quite as badly. But by "not quite as badly", I still mean, "holy shit!"

I stood holding my baby boy, my girl at my side, and I had to choke back tears. Because although I know better, although I never should let my mind go there, it did.

Immediately I thought of how easily that could have been me. Us. We drive right there every single day. Several times a day, oftentimes. It could have been us. My babies. And if it had been, if we’d been in our own car, on the same side of the street, in that exact same spot, I wouldn’t have a little girl anymore.

And that’s something I can hardly even think about; it nearly kills me.

I could deal with a lot of devastations or tragedies. If J lost his job. If, God forbid, he left me. All the inevitable deaths of those I love some day down the road.

But my children. Their mortality. It is something I cannot let enter my brain without hyperventilating. They are amazing. They are everything. But they are mortal.

And that terrifies me.

Fortunately for them, I haven’t wrapped them in bubble wrap and forced them to live in a padded cell, though I’ve been tempted. I’ve always let them do crazy brave things at insanely early ages, trusting that they know better than me what they are capable of.

Mostly, I know how to deal with those fears. If they fall off the slide, if they nearly cut their thumbs off, or maybe knock themselves unconscious from falling off of a table (not that those have happened before…). Those are things I am more or less prepared for. Afraid of, but prepared for.

I’ve never thought to be afraid of a 30 foot tree falling on my car while driving. Never in my entire life has that thought crossed my mind. And I bet it hadn’t crossed the couple’s whose car got smashed today either.

And it always seems to be the things that we don’t know to fear that kick us in the ass. Kind of like the reasons that have been giving me such a negative attitude lately.

But you know what? I have two amazing children. They are happy. They are healthy. And nothing else matters at the end of the day.

Nothing.

Everything else is so minute and unimportant it doesn’t deserve my negative energy. So instead, I’m going to focus on those awesome babies that I do have, and just be happy. Because life is too short. There are too many unknowns.

And when my own mortality comes knocking one day, I don’t want to have spent so much time with the “woulda, coulda, shouldas.” I just want to have spent a lot of happy, good times, with my amazing little family.