Perspective

I got home from the Harry Potter movie last night and was full of emotions. (for the record, yes, good movie, NOT great movie.  And the feel-good ending bothers me in the book as well.)  I did what I usually do, sign onto facebook (I’m so addicted) and learned that one of my friends had been in a horrible car accident.

I won’t go into too many details here, because most of you won’t know her and it’s not my place anyway.  We went to school (CIM) together, and she is a fellow violinist and Suzuki teacher.  I had dinner with her in March, and we are both engaged to be married.  She was in the car with her fiancé.  Right now it is just a matter of waiting to see what happens, and they are both in intensive care. 

How many miles do we all spend on the road each day/week/month?  I was trying to think of how many miles I have driven in my life—probably about 250,000 if recall the mileage on the various vehicles I’ve owned.  And that doesn’t count the miles I’ve ridden with other people.  We are all lucky every day when nothing horrible happens. 

I am often haunted by a vision from my childhood while on a car trip to visit family for the holidays.  We were stuck in bad traffic due to an accident, and when we finally passed the accident scene (vehicles at this point, not people) there were Christmas presents scattered about in the median.  I don’t know how much of that memory is true and how much has been distorted, but I know how I felt.

One of my friends tweeted this last night– "Please send prayers, happy thoughts to my friend and her fiance who were in a serious crash today. Then hug your loved ones."

It feels so helpless to be sitting on the sidelines wondering what will happen.  Life is short.  We all spend so much time worrying about piddling details.  In the end none of that matters. 

All we can do is be the best person we can be for the time we are given, right?  I know I try to do that, but I don’t do a very good job of it.  Then again, I don’t know.  Maybe I’m a far better friend than I give myself credit for.

2 thoughts on “Perspective”

  1. Hi, sorry for your friends, I wish them well. Thanks for your inights on HP. I have three kids that have grown up with the books and movies and all three have different reactions, all have read the series multiple times, usually before each new book arrived and each movie. My wife and started them out reading to them as bedtime stories. I found your profile on the bottom of my Yelp weekly email as a top yelper. Thank you for the blog link, I will be checking in to see what you have to say. I don’t blog (but I should), maybe someday..

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