Today in my hometown a 14 year old girl was hit by a car and killed.   I know her brother.  I’m friends with his girlfriend.

This morning, while still in that foggy land between asleep and awake, I heard my phone vibrate.
Innocently I glanced at my overnight emails that had come through before I looked at the message that had just arrived:  please pray for my boyfriend’s sister.

Twenty-two minutes later I got a final text: she didn’t make it.

A girl I had never met.  A friend of a friend.  A 14 year old girl.

I couldn’t help it.  I started to cry.  Ugly cry.

My kids stared at me blankly.

“What’s wrong, Mommy?”

I told them.

A girl was hit by a car.  She died.

“Let’s pray for her mommy and daddy and brother, ok?”

(Was I too open with them?  They’re only three and five.)

I know I’m not the only one holding my kids a little tighter tonight.

****

Alone in the car, after going to see the family, my heart and my mind are searching.

I’m already angry with God.  Confused.

So young.  So much promise.

Gone.

Gone.

I wonder…can’t help but wonder…

What if it were me?

What if it were my child?

How can you, as a parent, not think that?

How do you keep going?

I know you must, you do.

But how?

All that I know is I’m breathing.
All I can do is keep breathing.
All we can do is keep breathing now.

The repetitive strains of the song flood my mind.

****

I can’ t sleep.

And I know that this is why.

I want to write more about it…

but this isn’t about me.

So I’ll pray.

And I’ll ask you to pray.

For love.

For peace.

For…the words that don’t come, can’t come.

*Thank you, Ingrid Michelson for this song.  It touches my heart in so many ways.