So... I've spent the last week revamping the blog. Buying websites and changing titles and writing and writing and writing. But since Saturday morning, I have had this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and it hasn't felt right to blog about why my son took a shower with a maxi pad stuck to his forehead (don't worry I'll post this one soon.)
See... On Saturday morning, I woke up to the news that two beautiful, smart, young 16 year old girls (both just one to two degrees from me) died in a car accident just streets away. And there is a third 16 year old girl still fighting for her life.
Unfortunately, we know too well what it is like for these families... The news takes me back to the night that Mike's brother died. The police phone calls, the drive to the hospital, the room... Yes the bad room that you've never noticed in the ER before because you've luckily never been taken there. The screaming... The crying... The utter shock...The arrangements... The funeral with too many young faces... The sadness... The heartbreak.
The difference this time is that now I'm a parent... Now, when I here about these tragedies I am overcome with fear. How do I keep my boys safe? How will I teach them how easily a night can go from fun to horrible? How do I explain to them that it's not necessarily the highways that are so terrible. It's the neighborhood streets that we drive on every day... How do I explain the dangers of the world around them without scarring them.
These girls were not any different than I was... At sixteen we were driving just to drive. I can't tell you how many times a group of us would spend hours driving around in circles on the weekends. I'm sure we were going too fast and we probably had the music on too loud. How will I explain to them how dangerous a car is? Will it mean something if at 15 years old I take them to the accident sights... If I take them to Alpha Road and show them the tree where Laura Welborn died in highschool... Or to plano parkway where their uncle hit a light pole in a sea of grass median... Or now to Mira Vista where Samantha Sacks and Lilly Davis lost their lives. If I make them read their stories and look at their faces...will it protect them? Or is it all just luck based... Oh G-d I hope they survive!
When I think about those poor parents having to wake up and bury their children my heart hurts and I feel ill. How will they move forward? I know they will move forward... They have other children who will need them to move forward. I have watched my inlaws move forward. But they will move forward changed... Forever changed.
Please pray for these families and for any family who has lost a child. Pray that Kendall Murray, the third teenager, heals both mentally and physically. Pray for the parents of the world, yourselves included, that we may find both the strength and the words to teach our kids the lessons that they need to know.
Kiss your kids. Tonight and always...
xoxo Amanda
