Invisible Lines

When I was ten, I could scarcely imagine twenty.
By the time I was twenty, forty seemed impossibly far away.

At fifty, I was sure sixty only happened to other people and when I got there, I decided it would be wiser to stop counting altogether.  



Age is like an artificial and invisible line in the sand.  On one side is the illusion of immortality and on the other, The Great Unknown - some would say there is no life until you cross over, others say everything important happens in between.  What I think seems to depend on current circumstances and how well or badly life is going at the moment.  It's an up and down world, unpredictable and full of surprises, fragile and precious, sometimes wise but more often foolish.  We learn most of the useful things too late to do us much good. 

The day before New Year's Eve saw an unimaginable tragedy in our small southern city - a 34 year old man backed out of his driveway with enough speed and force to strike and kill a 5 year old child on a bicycle. Before the police were even finished at the scene, there were calls for blood - he'd been drinking, he'd been on his cell, he'd been texting, where were the parents who should've been watching their child and so on.  It was an unbearably sad story, made more so for its happening so close to Christmas and it will resonate forever in the lives of those involved - grief, like age, is like an uphill climb against a strong wind.  It takes small steps and rests often, tries not to look down for fear of falling.  You gain a little ground, you lose a little and work your way through it because there's no other route and no short cut.   


A part of me is grateful that I don't know the driver or the child's family, grateful for the distance between me and their pain.  Even if I had them, words provide no comfort for such times - there's never an explanation for the taking of a child and no one really cares about God's great and mysterious plans.


There's no solace for a heart wounded by the loss of a child.