This is our older son's and his wife's anniversary. Ten years. We had our older two kids get married within three months of each other, one in New York, the other here. What an amazing time it was! A lot of joy, reunion, exhaustion and then, ten days before the second wedding, 9/11. We had two kids living in New York, and the older two's half brother was flying in to New York from Dublin and his plan was turned around. All the family got here in time, being brave and determined, but we were all also in shock. The world had changed in one quick snap.
But often it happens that way. One day you are worrying if they have the shoe you want in your size and the next you're in a hospital. I tell people I don't like surprises, but I should be expecting them. Not anticipating or dreading, but prepared for the fact of change. The one constant is change.
Today looks ordinary. I want to buy slippers, go to the grocery store, and check the sale at the luggage place. But I'm also on the lookout for the extraordinary, tiny moment or big. Yesterday I was driving to my voice lesson and decided to take a slightly different route, and the street was blocked off. In the paper this morning I saw someone had been killed, as well as people injured, and I missed being in the reign of bullets by about ten minutes. I was late to the lesson, and rattled as a result. I'd moved into the path of death, and I slid away safely. But lives were lost or ruined right there, right then. It's a complicated world. There is evil. Darkness stalks us. I'm looking for the overheard laughter, the child waddling down the street holding her mother's finger, the roses climbing the gate. But what I'll find is anyone's guess.
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