Chasing away Chubby

You could almost smell the pungent scent of death and grief in my hometown today.  I drove by before 7:00 this morning to see crews from the electric company repairing wires destroyed in the accident that destroyed lives. There was a memorial service in the most unsafe location of the crash site beside the highway, at a makeshift memorial that had sprang up this afternoon.   I drove slowly by as a mother and daughter left flowers in the newly repaired fence, and I drove by again as 50 teenagers stood along the lonely highway and prayed. News crews from about every TV station in the state were gathered like vultures outside the high school.  Students pretty much came and went as they pleased.  My nieces cried.  My son lamented about the eerie stillness that engulfed the gym this morning and about the day being completely depressing.  

This was the day that the school system cancelled every scheduled sporting event this week.  Homecoming which was to be Friday, was postponed.  No soccer, basketball, or football games will be played this week.  No Cross country races will be run. 

Death has visited us.  He creeps among us.   We feel him here.

We are all reminded that we are on borrowed time.  That we are promised nothing.  We hold our own a little closer, feeling grateful it was not our children, and then wishing it hadn’t been their children either.  We are reminded that we are in this together…a fact we live to forget.  We are reminded that life is precious, that our kids are precious, the entire earth is precious…and finite.  No…there is no infinity for us…this side of heaven anyway.

A thousand kids realized that they weren’t invincible yesterday.

My 10 year old niece told me she was afraid of getting her license someday.

A thousand kids learned that speed kills.

Two young lives were extinguished in a blink of an eye.  Two beautiful girls, so full of life, were gone in an instant.   A family changed forever.  We know the cause, but we still don’t know why.  Why them? Why now?  Why yesterday? Why ever?  Why?

For now there are no answers, just black skid marks, oil spots, and flourescent paint marking a path traveled…a trail of broken hearts and tears,  a trail of regret,  &… the path not taken…

Posted on September 18th, 2007 by lodyangel
Filed under: off topic