sadness

I was hoping to have some awesome thing or some incredibly funny thing happen in my life for me to write about in this blog to move out of my current funk. But it's not happening.

My kids' school has lost another child; a third grader. I don't know all the details, but he had some minor outpatient surgery last week, went home, things went downhill rapidly, and now I am going to a memorial service for an 8 year old on Friday. There's nothing that makes this ok. Nothing. My kids didn't know him well - they recognized his picture but didn't know him. Kath's daughter L was in his class 2 years ago, and was a friend. That there is this life here, that we live - that requires that death be here in order for life to continue, I know that. But nothing makes it okay for an 8 year old boy to die.

So I watch my beloved children play baseball and create music and learn, I dance the dance of friendships, I live through the angst of politics and religion and weave my life tapestry and transform my life into my own piece of art by constructing my family, by creating science, by writing papers and building my marriage and building relationships, and ultimately? It is all so out of my control. Children should not die, but they do. If I were really as powerful as I like to think I am, that would never happen.

So when it does, the realness of my powerlessness chokes me.

My life is so good right now - it is. These things remind me of how fragile that is, though. In the blink of an eye, that carefeully created masterpiece, that art, that family, can be crushed, just because. It's essential that we know that, I suppose. But also essential that we don't let it destroy the goodness that is here.

Cripes. I'm down in a 3-sigma section. I'm ready to move back to median conditions, world, okay?