Tragedy seems to hit my life from the periphery sometimes. I don't mean your grandma dying after a long and fulfilling life or the everyday work and wear of life that everyone mucks through with some regularity. I'm talking horrible, heart breaking adversity. Like when a high school cross-country teammate shot herself with her father's gun. Or finding myself bonding with a patient (whatever the reason...) and finding out through her medical intake that she lost her baby in the seventh month of pregnancy when her boyfriend decided to express his opinion regarding a late dinner with a bat to the gut.
I think of the events of this last weekend with my cousin in some random parking lot, and it strikes me again.
None of these are my tragedies. They are not my loss to feel. I remember giving a hug to the best friend at that high school reunion. I remember what that punch in the gut feels like when you know what's been lost is never going to be replaced in the here and now. I remember all that, and then I remember the two minutes I once spent convinced to my absolute core that it was my child being pulled unconscious from the swimming area. And I know there's no comparison between the two.
It's somber times like these that remind of something my Aunt Theresa told me when she very quietly and dependently distracted my children from entering an active construction zone while I was distracted and (take a guess) yakking. I was bending over backwards thanking her for not only keeping them safe, but also for being so patient and kind in the process. I felt like I hardly knew my aunt, since she lives more than a few states away and I only talked with her maybe every two years. For five minutes at a time. But she said something that I'll never forget and that rung so true for me that, dare I say it.... it makes me downright emotional remembering the occasion.
She just looked at me like it was the simplest thing in the world, gave me a hug and said, "Oh honey, you're family. You'd do the same for me." And just like that, distance had no bearing whatsoever. Of course I would. And that's when some very important perspectives starting coming together for me. We are all connected and we are all responsible towards each other in a very real way. We all come from the same place, and we all need the same things. If I give nothing else in my life, I want to give love and kindness freely, without price and without expectation. That's the lesson that Theresa showed me that day. There are no 'assignments', there is no 'duty', there is only love. And that is ultimately what connects us.
And that is absolutely the sappiest I will get for tonight. It's been one of those 72-hour gaps where the appearance of a butterfly makes me want to sob.
Then, of course, one had to choose our driveway as his final resting place. Let's just say that was a final straw in the haphazard pile holding up the entirety of my mental health.
Come Wednesday, we're taking off to Spokane and I'm gonna give my brother and sister a huge hug.
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