Little tragedies

Thursday Claire and I drove past a car lying on its side. I've seen cars upside down before, cars shimmering through a bank of flames, but this one balanced perfectly, almost peacefully, on its left flank.

I can't tell you the make, model, or color. But I can tell you that the driver's window was open (or broken) and scattered across the concrete just below was a half eaten apple, a bottle of water, some crumpled papers and other detritus.

That was what struck me. The stuff. The driver was no where to be seen.

Claire oohed a little and then shrunk back into her car seat, feverish. Out of school.

There's something so sweet about the flushed cheeks and warm neck of an ill five-year-old girl. I'll remember that, when she's older, how she reached for me when she was sick.

*

Larger tragedies. Natural disasters that kill people pushing bikes along quiet roads and fishermen hauling in their catches and mothers taking care of feverish children. What can I say about it, really? It's awful.

Much worse than a tipped car or an elevated body temperature.

I'm very sorry for all those people in Japan. I'm sure we'll give money (or socks!) and it will feel inadequate, because how can you push back the sea and bring back the dead with fistfuls of dollars?

Comments

[Bev]

Perfectly poignant...yet again. You are awesome.

[Rita]

I drove up on a car accident once where bodies were covered with tarps alongside the road. It was gruesome. And my brain always goes back to those roadside bodies when I hear of things like Japan. I try to imagine 10,000 of those covered bodies alongside a road. It's my weird way of trying to put the catastrophe in perspecitve.

Also wanted to take a moment and gush about your writing. I so enjoy reading your blog.

[Cactus Petunia]

And yet we seem to continue as a species, despite the tragedies and the odds...We can't bring any of it back, we just go on.

[kcinnova]

It's the pictures, the snippets of life, that help us to comprehend... and yet it is incomprehensible.
We will give tokens, because sometimes a token is all we have -- and sometimes a token provides a spark of hope that someone cares.

[Teri]

Love the picture and the post. I keep trying not to imagine what it would be like, to have your family - your babies, your parents - floating away from you and out to sea, never to return. Lost. Disappeared. How do the survivors survive that?

[Averil Dean]

I'm with you. Childhood illnesses are endearing. Those damp bits of hair at the nape of a small neck. The soft, warm cheeks....

Beautiful post, Angie.

[Su G]

My church gave me a list of needs and is sending a load of items directly to an orphanage in Japan where they have a personal connection. Two people from Everett are there choosing to stay and help. Let me know if you want to contribute. Heather has asked that we donate the stack of stuff we were going to be selling in her semi-annual consignment sale. I love that it's direct.