They say it took hours to get her out  Justin told me, recounting the details of a car accident on the city-bound highway. The other guy walked away, but I doubt he’ll ever be the same. I wouldn’t be.

Thick fog: a car crosses the centre line, impatient to pass. A head-on collision and a mother of three is gone.

Only a few days later, her husband may come across her shoes in the closet, her grocery list on the counter, leftovers she made in the fridge. Mundane evidence of her remains on standby, as though she’s still on her way home.

She had a bag of ketchup chips in her lap  Justin told me, the shaken observation of a fellow firefighter on scene for the first time. And this is what sticks: on the most ordinary of days, you can be gone in a flash. I feel for that father and husband, left to provide strength, soothing and answers to three children when there must be none to be had for himself.

An awareness of mortality settles itself on you with pregnancy, takes root in a dusty corner of your brain despite the most joyous time of your life. Even if it’s fifty years away, you’re a mother now. You’ll never want to be parted from your babies.

Last night Evan woke crying. I whispered in his ear mama love, mama love, and lifted him from his crib onto the bed for diagnostic comfort. But he fell back to sleep as he lay, hair sticking up with heat, flushed with tears and exhaustion, pudgy legs sprawled luxuriously in the breeze of the window.

There is no sight nor scent more delicious. I lay my head on his chest, ear to his heart, and felt his heat on my face in the darkness.

ka-thump
ka-thump
ka-thump

In some ways, I don’t like proof that he’s human. The source of his life so vulnerable, right there under my cheek.

Evan’s delighted wonderment at the world snaps me back from anxiety. Elevator buttons, speaker phones, dogs on a beach. All glorious and magical. We forget that as adults, embroiled in frustration at income tax and a week of rain and never having enough of what we want: time, money, accomplishment. We need to play more. Be in awe more. Roll around on the front lawn more, just because, despite the fact that it’s a cat turd minefield. It’s mostly grass, after all. And what’s laundry for, anyway?

Sad news from the highways makes me want to take a page from Evan’s book more often. Something tells me that our recently departed Blandford mother, who shared with me only a closeted love of ketchup chips, would probably agree.