I just don’t have any ‘funny’ in me tonight. Oh, well, yes, I look funny, and I probably smell funny and I’ve been acting funny my whole life long, but you know. It’s been a long day and my nerves are shot, and my heart hurts for people I will never know, and I think I’m going to cry.

I keep picturing in my mind the scenario we all know so well. We put our children in the back seat and make sure they are securely belted down in their car seats. We wouldn’t dream of letting our child NOT be strapped in. In our minds, they are safe now. Nothing can harm them because we made sure they were safely strapped in. We get in the mini-van to do some errands, and on the way to the grocery store we stop at Burger King, go through the drive-through and get some fun meals, and a #2 with a diet cola for ourselves. It’s our routine grocery-shopping-day lunch treat. We do this twice a week. The kids are munching happily away, and they are excited over their new toy; another one to add to the collection, whee! Go Mom. Burger King. Thank you, Mom. We pull up to the intersection, the intersection we’ve pulled up to a zillion times before, and we stop, turn-signals blinking, because the light is red, and when the light is red, everybody stops. When the light turns green, we go, because when the light is green it is our TURN to move. We start to move when the green light gives us permission, and we pull forward and turn into the grocery store parking lot. We do this regularly. We know exactly how to do it and what will happen every time we do it. As long as everybody waits their turn and follows the rules, life will go on and it will be good.

Except, this time it didn’t happen quite that way. Because, this time somebody didn’t obey the rules. This time, somebody didn’t obey the traffic lights. This time, somebody moved forward when it wasn’t their turn. This time, somebody who wasn’t paying attention dropped an H-bomb on our van and disintegrated everybody and everything in it, and we didn’t even have time to see it coming. We were laughing and singing along to the Veggie Tales cd and talking to the kids about ‘tomorrow’ and planning beef stroganoff for dinner tonight and wondering if the store still had those crackers the kids loved, on sale, and while all of this comfortable and loving and usual stuff was happening, in the midst of our carefully planned safety nets and precautions and love, it all ended. In the wink of an eye, we were gone.

Please don’t make me dream about it tonight.

Please help me not to dwell on it too much.

Please help me not to hate the truck driver. He’s probably hating himself enough to satisfy us all right now.

Please don’t EVER let him behind the wheel of anything ever again.

Life is strong. Life is powerful. LIFE. We love life. We live life. We cherish life. We give life.

And sometimes, we take life.

It’s so strong, and yet it can be snuffed out as easily as we blow out a candle. Shakespeare was right. He often is, I’ve noticed.

When that toy hit the ground in front of the window today, I could feel a scream starting down at my toes and working its way up to my head. It never came out, but it was there. I think it’s still there, biding its time.

Whoever was in that van, was precious to somebody. There are people in a house somewhere tonight whose lives are forever changed because today, for a split second, somebody else disobeyed a simple rule. In somebody’s house tonight, there are are people who have lost part of their hearts.

Statistics. I read somewhere that statistics are people with the tears wiped off.

I don’t think I ever really understood that until today.

There is no witty commentary tonight. Probably this accident wasn’t even unusual, because we all know that this kind of thing happens a thousand or more times a day, somewhere. I just happened to see this one.

I think I will read the newspaper differently from now on.

I think I need to re-read “Our Town.”

What I need is a stiff drink. Does anybody have any vodka?

I’d never smelled anything like that before.

I want my mommy.