In a flash

I was all set to write about what a fun morning the kids and I had at the Forestry Center, including how we played with some new friends and how we got to look up their great-grandfather and their great-great and great-great-great grandfathers in the little area that describes notable timbermen from Oregon's past, when I got a call that changed my day.

It was about a story that has been heavy on my heart since I heard about it on Monday.  On Monday morning, on the same street as Mateo's preschool and about a mile north, an elderly driver got confused between the gas and the brake and hit three people as his car ran through an intersection, up over a curb and into a gas station, finally crashing into a pole. 

In a flash, an ordinary morning turned to tragedy and chaos.  Two of the victims were adult men, both of whom survived, and one was a 22-month-old baby, who did not.  This poor boy and his dad were out for a walk in their stroller, doing nothing wrong, when this car came out of nowhere and plowed into them.  Despite the dad's best efforts and nurses who just happened to be walking by and performed CPR, the little boy died at a local children's hospital yesterday. 

I've been thinking a lot about this tragedy.  I've been through that intersection many times, although never on foot.  It goes without saying that losing a child is a nightmare that I can't even begin to imagine.  I've been thinking of the family and hoping...well, I don't know what I've been hoping.  I guess that they're making it through these first days with a lot of support and respect for their privacy by the media. 

I've also thought about the elderly man who caused the accident.   I was saying to a friend earlier that once you hit age 75, I would think that the potential for really bad things happening to you probably goes down.  I mean, eventually an illness or accident will befall you, but one would hope that the chances of random tragedy would go down by that age.  I don't know what the rest of this elderly man's life is going to be like, but I'd guess that it will not be good.  I don't know how one could live with having caused such a terrible loss.   

So, I had been following this story on the Oregonian's website, but then I found out this afternoon that we are ever so tenuously connected to the baby's family.  It's one of those degrees of separation things where we have a mutual friend but have never met, and probably would never have a reason to.  However, just finding out about that connection made it seem that much more real. 

My heart breaks for that little boy's family and all the grief they're going to have to wade through.  It reminds me of the fact that the English language doesn't have a term for a parent who has lost a child - it's like it's just too awful to even give a name to.  It sounds like they have a strong and devoted community rallying around them and taking care of anything they need...except, of course, for having their son back. 

I don't know them, but my heart breaks for them anyway.  I hugged our kids a little tighter today and thanked God again for having them here with us on this day, and hopefully on every other day, too.  I pray for solace, support, and love surrounding the baby's family in this most awful time.  And, I offer up this blog post, as a mom, in loving memory of a little boy I never met but wish I had known.