What could possibly be next?

Before you commit any time to reading this blog entry, let me warn you that this one is a downer. If you're not up for that right now, then move on to something else. I've said before that this blog is a good place to put down my conflicting thoughts to help myself sort through them, and this is one of those cases. I've been complaining for the past couple of days about how awful they have been and all the terrible things that keep happening, and then tonight I got hit by a massive dose of perspective.

First, the backstory. This weekend was originally going to be a triumphant weekend for Deb and I as we were going to complete our first century ride together. For the non-cyclists out there, a century ride is a 100-mile organized group ride. Deb has been battling a foot injury all fall, which has hopefully been diagnosed correctly for the first time this week, but she had to drop out of the ride weeks ago. Instead I left Saturday afternoon to drive out to the town where the ride started Sunday morning to do my first century on my own. As I left campus, I noticed a group of kids playing together in the front fields - a pretty standard EHS sight and one of the big reasons we live here. While at dinner in Front Royal, VA, I get a call from Deb telling me how Mark had gone out to play with those kids right after I left and had ended up falling awkwardly on his hand and injuring it. She took him the the school doctor/next-door neighbor who showed her how to splint it and told her to call our doctor in the morning. By morning it was so swollen that Deb took him to the ER to get it x-rayed. Luckily it's a bad sprain, not a break, but he's in a pretty serious splint for a while. At every rest stop on the bike ride, I checked in to see what progress had been made in his diagnosis. So at this point, we have Deb out with an injured foot and Mark in a splint with an injured hand.

I, at least, had a terrific bike ride. The weather was cool and comfortable and the tomato sandwiches were delicious. Around mile 80 I started thinking about what I wanted to post as my triumphant post-ride Facebook status. By mile 85 I had settled on a picture of my cyclocomputer showing the >100 mile distance with a caption of "Take THAT, bucket list!" At mile 86.2, I hear a pop, and then a metallic clank-clank-clank-clank. I immediately hit my brakes to see what happened and the guy who had been drafting off of me rode by yelling, "Broken spoke!" Yep - with less than 14 miles to go, I had broken a spoke. I knew there was a mechanic stationed at mile 91.8, so I used one of the twist ties attaching my number to my bike to MacGyver a temporary fix and rode on cautiously. The mechanic told me I had the choice of stopping there and paying a few dollars to replace the spoke later, or finish the ride on my crippled bike and then spend a few hundred dollars replacing the wheel. So, my first century ride ended after 92 miles, and I got a ride in a car back to the finish.

So now we have injuries to Deb, Mark, Josephine (my bike), and my ego. I spent all of Monday grumpy. I ended my soccer practice early that afternoon so that I could get home and go help coach Mark's first soccer practice (which he would be watching from the sideline). I get home at 5:45. Deb has planned a party at 6:00 in honor of the German exchange student we are currently hosting. Strangely enough, Deb is not there. I find my 13-year-old daughter, Layne, in the kitchen preparing for the party. She is in the middle of making sandwiches and in a very calm state of near-panic (yes, that made sense in my mind) as she tries to get the entire party ready in 15 minutes. I ask how I can help, and she puts me to work. Soon one of her friends arrives, and Layne puts her to work too. The one bright spot in this whole weekend was watching Layne take charge. She really has the kind of leadership skills I don't have. She stayed calm, prioritized the work, delegated responsibilities to others, trusted them to do their jobs well, and got things done efficiently. In those 15 minutes, she made enough sandwiches to feed the guests, prepared decorative serving bowls of finger foods and snacks, and even prepared an apple pie and got it baking in the oven. This just confirms two things I keep saying on this blog - Teenagers are Awesome! and My Daughter is One of My Favorite People in the World! In the end, the party started at 6:00 and Deb got home at 6:15. Such is DC traffic! Because of Layne, though, the party was a success. I, personally, was ridiculously stressed out by the whole situation, but Layne took it in stride and just got the job done.

So, with all this going on, I am of course responding in the most mature of all possible ways - by whining on my Facebook status. An old friend from high school posts a response which helps me think about perspective - that there are millions of people out there with real problems who would dream of having the problems I have. Still today, though, I find myself whining about all the problems of the last few days. Then tonight, the phone rang and perspective was on the other end of the line. The mother of one of my advisee's was calling to let me know that the older brother of a friend of his had been found dead in his college dorm room this afternoon. She wanted me to know so that I could check up on her son/my advisee as he handled this news. Long story short - he and his classmates who knew the boy are handling it very well. They are shaken but doing a very good job of supporting each other. Have I mentioned lately that Teenagers are Awesome! Now that I've checked in on them, I get to start trying to process the news myself.

I have to be very careful what I say here because there are so many privacy laws (and there should be!) and I know more than I should say in public. The best I can say here is that I had a strange special bond with the boy who died today. I can't say why, but I definitely felt that bond. It's interesting the kids that you really feel connected to over the years, like the one I mentioned in my 9/11 post. This was a very different bond, but one that actually meant more to me than I realized. Because of that bond, this boy's death is a real failure for me. It is part of a doctor's training to deal with the fact that she can't save every life - some patients will die. Similarly, teachers know that they can't turn every student into the kind of mature, healthy adult who loves our subject best that we want them to be. Death isn't supposed to be part of the picture, though. We don't deal with those kinds of things. This is a case, though, where I can't help wondering if we couldn't have done more.

In the end, I have to look at the events of the last few days with a healthy perspective, but that's hard to do until you can find a little bit of emotional detachment. I've been complaining about traffic and broken bike spokes while at the same time kids have been dying. Perspective works both ways, though. While it helps me to realize how minor my problems have been and how great my life is, it also cushions me and protects me from the pain of the bigger problems. While I can't help but wonder if we could have done more to help this young man, I need to realize that his problems were beyond what we could handle. We did everything we could to help, and I know many others did too, but in the end, it just wasn't possible to do enough. This student's death was a tragedy and there is nobody to blame. As much as those of us who live comfortable lives in affluent nations like to think we are in control, in the end we aren't. Some things are too big for us to control or avoid. We just need to keep doing the best we can and helping each other through this life. There will always be tragedies, but there is so much more beauty and good in the world. We can't stop working to avoid the tragedies as best we can, but we also can't lose perspective.

I think I'll go watch my son sleep for a few minutes before I go to bed.