In Their Shoes

I am a better sarcastic writer than serious one. Gas.  Gas and legumes were somewhat going to be the centerpiece of this post , because I have decided to try a week hard core on the 4-Hour Body Slow Carb diet.  It involves eating a lot of beans.  A lot.

But, as I was thinking about what to write, I couldn't shake two stories from the past few days.  The first is of the car crash deaths of three Bowling Green State University students, Rebekah Blakkolb, Christina Goyett, and Sarah Hammond, and the second is of Philip Patanaude, a 28-year-old Chicagoan who drowned in Lake Michigan Saturday.

See, right now in my life I am doing a lot of planning.  Planning to buy a house, planning to graduate from business school, planning a new career path.  Part of all that planning is hedging decisions with unknowns, but assuming the best outcome.  But, life isn't always that auspicious, and when it is, you don't always have much or anything to do with it.

I can just see it - ten sorority sisters in two cars, heading to the airport for Spring Break.  It's the middle of the night, but that's okay, the driver is rested and everyone is too excited to sleep.  Their parents are mostly worried about what they will do on the trip, but not so much about the ride to the airport.  I can see it because I have done it.  I have been in that car, I have been with those girls - same sorority, even.  The difference is that I, like thousands of others, made it to the airport.  I didn't encounter a car driving the wrong way on the interstate, so my life, the lives of my friends and family, were not spider-webbed across a windshield and splintered. 

I was doing a hell of a lot of planning this time last year, getting ready for our September wedding.  That's really all you do when you are prepping for nuptials - you make plans, get excited for a big party and a bigger forever, and day by day you focus more and more on that person who is going to be with you for the rest of your life.  I have been there, too.  Now, I imagine for a moment at a time what Philip's fiancee is going through, but I have to stop because even the fiction of it makes me sob and feel physical pain. 

I have had a night or two when I wondered where the hell my fiancee was, but unlike Philip, John came home.  And while John wasn't at the lake, haven't we all made decisions that in one way or another have put our lives at risk?  I know have.  I've had a lucky youth characterized by a carefree spirit peppered with reckless behavior and bad choices.  Yet here I am.  And knock on the biggest damn piece of wood while throwing a block of salt over my shoulder, all of my friends and family are here too.


As much as I plan my future, make decisions and influence what I can, the fact is, I am really not in control of anything at all.  None of us are. It's comforting to think that is not the case, but really, all we can control is our behavior. Our actions towards others.  The outcomes?  Not so much. 

So now, all I can do is pray for these people's friends and families and for continued luck and guidance. I can be loving, grateful, honest, generous and charitable, because these are the right ways to be. I can tell people I love to be safe and I can be safe myself.  But I know, without a doubt, it is only by the grace of God go any of us.