I sometimes have to reassure my kids that I am not going to die anytime soon, which I recognize is also reassuring myself. But then I get a wake up call, like the news today that a friend of a friend who was in a car accident while on vacation has died. I had heard about the accident, and the anticipated long road to recovery, and then when I didn't hear more I assumed that she was improving. Which she had been, until she wasn't anymore. I don't know many details, but I am sad for her, and for her family and the many people who loved her very well. I send my thoughts, love and prayers to them.
At the same time, I am reminded that I must live my life now, because we do not know how long we have. Ever. I want to see my kids grow up, become themselves, fall in love, explore their passions. I want to see what my life will bring as I am released from the rigors of parenting young kids, into other stretches of parenting and living and working and building new friends and relationships and watching old ones change and shift. I want all of it, and yet there is no way to know what I will get. My life is shaped by the loss of my father when I was 10 years old, and I deeply fear for my kids and the losses they will face. But I can't know what I will face, or what they will, and this is my wish: to live now, for now. To drive with care, but otherwise to throw much caution to the winds. To say yes, when it feels right, even if it feels scary.
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