Some anger and some reflections

I'm putting my kid on a train this afternoon to go to a funeral. It's not going to be easy for her, I know, especially since she's staying with her biomom and things are still really strained between them. But what else can you do? It's the best way for her to get to the funeral and to go and see her friend in the hospital.

More on the accident-while it was a pure case of wrong place, wrong time for the girls, eyewitnesses say that the other driver (who was in a rented Kia Rondo SUV) was driving aggressively while speeding and talking on a cell phone. This is where the anger comes in, for certain. It's one thing that he paid for his stupidity with his own life-although I still feel for his family-but his assinine behaviour caused so much devastation for a family that didn't deserve it.

I've been thinking all of this over since I heard about it. As a parent, it strikes so close to home. I mean, you do so many things for your kids to protect them, to give them the best chance that you can, but you have to send them out into the world. You always have a bit of fear in your heart that something beyond your control will hurt them. In your upper mind, you think about smaller things. Will someone be cruel, will they get cheated, will they have their heart broken? Deep down, though, you dread the random. You know the odds are so against your child running into a serial killer or a rapist or a drunk driver. It's not likely that a bridge will collapse or a building will catch fire.

It's not likely. But it does happen. And so you hope that it won't happen to your kid. You worry when they're late. When you see the school phone number during the day, your heart speeds up a bit. "Ah, crap! What did she do?" while part of you is actually praying that it's only a bit of trouble and not a call to meet your kid at the hospital.

I've lost my train of thought on this one. I think that I was going to say that it's an act of faith to let your kid out of your sight. You have to surrender control and trust that the universe will send your child home safely to you. Of course, it's the same with anyone you love.

And maybe this is part of what drives faith. It's too scary to think that you're sending your loved ones away to be at the mercy of random chance. So you call on the blessings of benign and protective entities to watch over them while you can't.

For me, though, that very randomness is part of my world view. I accept that bad things will happen, no matter what, and that sorrow and grief are a part of life. It doesn't make it any easier to bear the sorrow. It just means that I don't (anymore!) rail and fight against the unfairness of it all. You can play the "if only" game to the point of ridiculousness when something happens. It won't change the facts.

But if it were my child that had died, I wouldn't be so accepting so soon.