Safety

It's a well known fact that I have safety issues. As I've written here before, I lost my older brother to a car accident 3 weeks after I got married, and my husband to a motorcycle accident not quite 8 years later.

I don't handle the threat of danger or accident well. My children wear helmets religiously, aren't allowed in other people's houses, and will be in car seats and or boosters until they graduate from college. Whenever they fall, I hold my breath. The nurse at Jeremy's school called a few weeks ago, to let me know he had fallen on the playground. "He's fine, back in class" she assurred me. "I just wanted to let you know." I had to call her back, I had to know if he fell and hit his head. Once I knew that the wounds were only to his knees and the palms of his hands, I didn't give it a second thought. Once, Brooklyn fell off a small bench on the kitchen floor, and landed face first, where she laid still for just a moment. It felt like eternity to me, and I spent the rest of the evening trying to calm my racing heart. I am on edge when my children aren't with me, I'm terrified something will happen and I won't be there.

Add to my safety issues a control problem and, and you have a recipe ripe with the possibility of disaster.

I just buckled my children into my sister-in-law Angela's truck and kissed them goodbye. Her three children, my three children, my mother-in-law Mary and Angela are going to spend the next two days driving from Ohio to Alabama, where we will celebrate Thanksgiving with Mary's side of the family on Thursday. I have a class tomorrow morning, and am unable to leave much before noon, and during the planning stages of this trip the adults decided it made more sense for the children to leave today and break the trip into two days, while my father-in-law Russ and I will leave late tomorrow morning and drive through in one stretch.

I've been growing more and more apprehensive about this trip. I do well with my children being away from me, especially when they're with family members--Mary in particular. I also do well when my children take trips in the car, but only as long as I'm the one doing the driving. It's not that I'm the world's greatest driver, and I don't trust anybody else to keep them safe. On the contrary, I'm actually probably one of the worst drivers in the family. It's more the fact that they aren't with me, and my grief-addled brain sees endless miles of interstate, with endless possibilities for tragedy. It doesn't matter that Angela drives an enormous Suburban--built like a tank and nearly as safe as one. It doesn't matter that my children are all buckled in car seats, where they will remain for the entirety of the trip. It DOES matter that I'm not with them. That I can't see them to KNOW that they are buckled in correctly. As I helped Angela secure Brooklyn's car seat in the Suburban, I begged both Angela and Mary not to loosen the straps on her car seat.

"I know they're tight." I said. "I know you think I'm silly and maybe even crazy, but they're set exactly where they should be. Please don't loosen them."

I'm sure they think I'm silly. I'm sure they get frustrated with my incessant need to be in control of my children, ensure for myself that they're safe at all times. The thing is--I know that sometimes things don't work out. In an instant, my life could change. I try to keep my brain from rolling over the possibilities--that I just kissed my children goodbye, waved from the driveway, and may never see them alive again. I try not to see the Suburban; on the interstate, flipping in the air over and over again, before it comes crashing back down to the ground and destroys my will to live. I try not to imagine that somebody will get run over in the parking lot at McDonald's, or that a door will open on the road and somebody will fall out. I try to be optimistic, and believe that I will meet up with my children in Alabama tomorrow night, find them sleeping soundly, and that I will curl up next to them and look forward to Thursday morning when I can hear all about their travels. It's hard, though. It's hard not to imagine the worst, when the worst had already happened. When I have seen life end in a moment.

I cried as I hugged Angela goodbye today. "Please, be safe." I pleaded. "They're my babies."

It's just a road trip. I know that. I'm trying to convince myself it will be fine, but as I sit alone in my living room, everything in the world that means anything to me is miles away. They're traveling at 80 mph, on a road full of people who don't understand how much I have to lose. I'm counting the hours until we're reunited again.