Fear

I am a fearful person. I tend to worry too much and am often more cautious than I should be. I tend to look for danger in any new scenarios or situations. I have always done this, but it has intensified since I had my kids. Maybe it is a Mommy instinct thing, I don't know. I faced our trip to Baltimore last week with dueling emotions of excitement and dread. I was nervous about the 12 hour drive. Not so much how the kids would do but more the fact that we were getting onto dangerous unknown roads with only a map to guide us. Whenever we drive somewhere, even only an hour or so from home, visions of fiery crashes are flickering in my brain. I was nervous about wandering around in a new, big, crowded city. Would there be lots of crime? Undesirables? Would I lose my kids in a huge crowd?


I remember a quote that was a high school graduation motto. I can't remember if it was mine, but it doesn't really matter. I also don't know who said it. The quote is: A ship in the harbor is safe, but that's not what ships were built for. I clung to that quote like a personal mantra thinking that it would be safe and easy to stay home, but I can't live my life or my kid's lives in fear that something bad will happen out in the "real" world.


Then while on our trip, what I clung to was shaken to its core. We learned while we were on the road that a guy in our home town, a guy that my sister graduated from high school with was murdered in his office. A ship in the harbor is safe... How can that happen? It seems so surreal to me that someone can be going about their day as they do everyday and have done everyday for so long and something so horrific can happen. When we returned home we were inundated with newspapers articles and emails from friend of friends about him and his life and family. I didn't know him, but I knew of him and his family and he seems like he was an all around great person.


I have found myself thinking about him and his family and getting choked up. I wonder what his morning, his last morning, was like? Did he talk to his wife that morning? Were they making plans for later that night? Did she tell him she loved him as he left? Was she annoyed with him for making too much noise in the kitchen and waking the kids as I often am with Trent? Were his kids sleeping when he left? Did he peek in on them and blow them kisses or did he just figure he would see them later? Did they get to hug him goodbye and wave at him through the window as my kids often do when their Dad leaves in the morning? I hope it was a good morning for them - that he told them all he loved them and would see them later.


The whole awful thing just drives home the point that life is such a gamble. We never know what will happen or when. What I hear about him is that he was a man of great faith. I know his family will take solace in that, but how can this not make them question their faith? How is this allowed to happen? What is the reason in God's plan for such a senseless, cold blooded act. Why is someone so loved and good taken from a family that so desperately needs him? I am not naive. I realize that this is not an isolated incident and that things similar to this happen to good people everyday. This one just really hit home.

Tell your family you love them. Kiss them and hug them all the time. Be kind to people and serve them. I pray for the family that faces the upcoming months and years of learning to live without their son, brother, husband and father. I pray that I can learn to live my life with less fear. I pray for a world where awful things like this don't have to happen.

Blog note: The trip to Baltimore was great and I will post pictures and stories when I get through all 300 of them!