It's nearly impossible to process news like that. I thought about my daughter, who is fifteen, and wondered how she and her friends are coping. I thought about the other campers, the counselors, the young lifeguards who were on the scene and, despite rigorous training, could not save him. I thought about the camp director as she had to compose the ghastly email.
And I thought about the boy's parents, who were probably somewhere near where I stood Monday, smiling and waving under an umbrella, blowing kisses as the buses departed for camp. I scrolled through my mental Rolodex, wondering if I know these people whose lives have just been shattered. But I realized that, whether I know them or not, I know them. I am just a heartbeat away from where they now find themselves, living every parent's worst nightmare. They are in my head and in my heart, a constant, painful reminder of how fragile life is.
As much as we like to think tragedies such as this will bestow upon us some sort of perspective, we are human, after all. Our thoughts inevitably return to our own little problems, for some of us more quickly than others. My mother was appropriately horrified by the news, but within a half hour she was complaining about her current condition (which, mind you, is not all that bad), moaning that the accident that put her here was totally unnecessary. Apparently, she would have preferred an accident that should have happened.
I'm a bit envious that normalcy returned so swiftly to her. As I write this, she is tapping her foot behind me, telling me the location of every piece of lint I need to pick up before I leave. Come to think of it, I'm getting annoyed, as I always do. Perspective is as elusive for me as it is for the next guy.
My mother may have 20/20 vision, but sometimes she, like the rest of us humans, doesn't always see things that clearly.
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