Thank you for today

A young man, visiting Hilton Head Island in South Carolina while on a business trip, decided to have a nice jog along the beach. The news article I found this morning said:

A father of two in town on business was jogging on the beach and listening to his iPod when he was hit from behind and killed by a small plane making an emergency landing, officials said Tuesday. Robert Gary Jones, 38, of Woodstock, Ga., died instantly Monday evening when he was hit by the single-engine plane, which had lost its propeller, said Beaufort County Coroner Ed Allen. The pilot's vision was blocked by oil on the windshield.

The plane was basically a glider without its propeller, making little to no noise, and it hit him from behind. Just because he was listening to his iPod doesn't mean the outcome could have been any different. I just felt sick when I read about this (it happened yesterday), because I thought about how he was just out there living his life, and something like this happened. Here's the entire article. He's gone, and he never knew what hit him.

And again, I felt moved to say thank you for today. Tomorrow is never guaranteed. I'll bet Robert's mother would gladly have changed places with her son if she could have. I think of her terrible loss. More from the article:

"Any time he traveled, I would worry myself to death about him," said his mother, who lives outside Tampa, Fla., where he grew up. "I'd call and say, 'Where are you, where are you?'"

I found this picture of me, today, while I was looking for something else. It shows me taking my first steps, and I'm sure that Daddy was on the other side of the lens. I had at least 67 years of life ahead of me when this picture was taken, and I felt invincible, like nothing could ever hurt me. That old car behind me, however (I have no idea what kind it was), could have crashed with me and my parents in it, as I am sure there were no seat belts or air bags, or other lifesaving devices that we take for granted today.

But Robert had all those things available to him, and still... It makes me ponder not only the fragility of our lives, but also the arbitrariness of these accidents. His mother is probably, right now, wondering how it could have been different. When my son Chris died, I would wake up from a dream where I kept trying to rearrange the circumstances and make it so he would still be alive. It would all be a bad dream that I could wake up from.

So I'd just like to say how grateful I am that life goes on, that we all have a chance to stop, take a breath, and say thank you for today.
:-[