Life is So Precious (Alternate title: Mortality Sucks)

The day before New Year's Eve I attended the funeral of an hours-old infant. He was the son of a colleague and they knew through most of the pregnancy that he wouldn't make it. At the time I couldn't imagine anything worse than a funeral with an infant-sized coffin. The hysterical wailing of the mother when they closed the coffin on her newborn son and started up the aisle of the church haunted me for days. I swear that the sound of it bounced around in my head.

Then last week a 42 year-old colleague with twin toddlers and an 8-year old died from an unexpected and viciously deadly form of cancer. She had been undergoing treatment and was ready to be back at work in the fall. Suddenly the cancer was everywhere and she had only days left. The funeral was today in San Francisco. I thought that seeing the coffin of such a young mother with her children and husband following behind was just as difficult as the previous funeral. I told my friends and colleagues I didn't want to go to anymore funerals this year.

On the way home from the funeral three other colleagues who stayed after the funeral for the burial were in a horrible car accident. They weren't more than 15 or 20 minutes away from home.  Someone else did something incredibly stupid (a u-turn on the highway) and caused a horrible accident.

Fortunately two of them are going to be ok. One is going home from the hospital tonight. The Dr. said she was lucky to escape with only bruises. Another is going to spend the night in the hospital for safekeeping. She is ok, according to her sister, but dizzy so they will watch her.

Unfortunately the third was airlifted to a trauma center where she is in critical condition. We don't know much else about her injuries except that they are severe.

On the one hand I am angry. What kind of cruel joke is it to have a serious injury accident on the way home from a funeral? On the other hand I am so grateful to have been not half an hour ahead of them on the road, and grateful for the two of them that I know will be ok, and remembering how precious every day is.