Dying

Jimmy and my boss (who lives in the neighborhood across from mine) both texted me Tuesday morning to let me know that there was a wreck on the highway and to take a different route (I hadn't left the house yet because I was getting Kiera on the bus).  Granted the wreck was on the opposite side of the highway that I was needing to travel, there are a buch of rubber neckers around here and traffic was majorly backed up.  While on my way in to work Jimmy called to tell me someone had died in the wreck.  I took the long way and still to pulled into work right after my boss did when she had already left 20 minutes before me.  And there were even 2 more wrecks on the same stretch of highway before I even got to work, though I don't believe those were fatal. 

While driving home that evening I had to pass over the exact same spot that the 28 year old man lost his life just 10 hours before.  I wondered what he and the driver (I think his wife) were coming into town for since they live south of Tulsa (we are North).  I thought about how horrible it must have been for the driver to sit there and watch his life slip away before her eyes.  I began to think of the people I have known that have died in car wrecks.  One was a close friends brother, another was a co-workers daughter, both were teenagers.  I started to think of the many other children, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters that have died at a young age that weren't in car wrecks but because of other reasons.  How it effects the families.  How the remainder of their day and lives went after that moment.  It makes me sad that I have been to more funerals than weddings.  A still born baby, a murdered wife, a suicide, a car wreck, illnesses, and many from old age. 

Kiera will sometimes ask if she will live to be 18 (since that seems to be the age she considers and "adult").  I hurts that I have to answer "I hope so".  To tell her we never know when our time is up, and to hear her tell me she never wants us to leave her.  Breaks my heart.  I hope she lives to see the end of today, tomorrow, next week, next month, the next year.  I hope she is able to grow up, find love in the many ways that it comes, to die an old woman who is ready to leave this earth after living full and happy life.