Because we all care...

I stumbled upon this post of Victoria's while reading Heidi's blog. I left a lame comment, but it really touched me because I'm feeling something similar today. Sadness for the pain of someone I don't know. One of the guys on my husband's rugby team was in a serious car crash and is lying in a coma with serious brain damage. He's 19. He's still a boy. He should be running around the field and studying and laughing and chasing girls and partying with friends. Not lying in hospital in a tangle of tubes and wires with an uncertain prognosis. This is a boy I've never met. I've never met his family. But I feel for them.

I don't know any of the details about the crash, don't know whether he was at fault. It doesn't matter. When I think of the stunts I pulled at 19.... And that could so easily be my son someday. My Badness. With his joyful and fearless attack of each day, each challenge. That could be my baby. Today it's not, but he's someone's baby, and I wish I could stop it. I wish I could help.

Victoria mentioned that her sadness felt somehow false, but I don't think that's true. We all grieve for those we don't know - in large scale disasters like Katrina and 9/11, and in small, personal tragedies like these. This feeling of love and sadness for others is what motivates us to help strangers, provide charity. Everyone benefits from that outpouring of love.

So if you can, say a prayer today, to whatever God you hold dear; or just send some waves of love and hope to these families you don't know. Maybe they'll feel it.

Updated 10/29 - The husband made a lot of noise when he came to bed last night. Shook the whole bed when he got in. Yanked the covers so hard that he stole the bit I'd already warmed up and left me with the cold edge. I could feel him looking at my back. "Are you awake?" he whispered.
"Well NOW I am" I snapped back.
"The kid died tonight. Davis."
"Oh babe." I whispered, rolling over, reaching for him. "Oh baby I'm sorry"
"He was a good kid....and he went out to get groceries....and he's dead." The husband's voice cracked. I reached over to stroke his face, and felt a tear steal down his cheek.
We held each other for a long time last night. Sometimes talking, mostly not. We grieved for someone else's boy. A boy we didn't really know. We shed silent tears for his parents, who've had their only child ripped from them just as he was on the cusp on being a man. And when our boy woke up in the night we were so glad. And we lay him between us, so we could just watch him breathe. And be thankful.

Go hug your children. Squeeze them tight.