Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

~ Elizabeth Stone

The collision seemed to happen – as these things always do – in excruciatingly slow motion. In a burst of reckless speed, a sudden swerve, and then the sickening impact. The “thwack!” of flesh as my daughter, aged nine and weighing only slightly more than a puff of air, was thrown back by the impact. Her entire body folding with the force as she bounced onto the turf, arms and legs akimbo, blond ponytail askew.

What had stopped her, mid-stride, was a soccer opponent. He was also a child, albeit one tall and stocky enough to appear nearly grown. So often these days when we size up the other team’s players, I want to demand some identification or proof of age. For many of them it seems that a driver’s license would do.

You run into this when your child hits a certain age. While “most” babies and “most” toddlers and even “most” preschoolers are of a somewhat comparable height, somewhere around age nine or ten, children shoot off in all directions size-wise. (Note I say “most” and not “all” here so please don’t write me on behalf of your nephew who was 6’4” in kindergarten). Some children are tall and some are small. Some are husky while others are slight. Some still so frail as to appear not yet fully formed. Others appear to have facial hair.

My baby had just been mowed down by one of the “driver’s license and facial hair” types.

And then, in a flurry of blessed activity, she was pulled to her feet, and stood, wobbly. She waved weakly in my direction, tested her footing and appearing to find nothing broken, trotted down the field. She was back in the game as people around me smiled and gave thumbs-up “she’s tough!”

Warned. You hear so much about those first weeks – that first year when you have a baby. People just can’t get enough of telling you all about the myriad of ways you will be hung out to dry by your newborn. There is a certain hazing ritual in informing new parents of the sleepless nights, the crying, and the insecurity (yours).

Later, you will thrill to tales of the “terrible twos” and the lumps, bumps, and bruises to both the knees and the ego along the path from infancy to preschool.

All of this wisdom imparted as if the necessary milestones of a healthy childhood all take place within reach of your hands. It is somehow never understood – until it is too late – that to teach them to walk is to give them the power to run. They run further away from your care. They take risks – and spills – with wild abandon.

It is a fine line between enjoying life with your kids and having them relive your life for you. I never cross that line because, if truth be told, I’m the first to admit that my daughter was far cooler – and tougher – than I when she hit about two.

She is her father’s child – genetically at least. She brims with a sparkle – and a confidence – I could only have dreamt of at her age. Heck, at twenty. Who am I kidding here? She is the first to laugh and quick to forgive. She shakes off slights and rarely complains. And, as that soccer game aptly demonstrated, when she gets knocked down, she bounces back up.

As a mother, I hope she maintains that equanimity always. Even as I pray that she isn’t routinely knocked down by life – or boys three times her size.

Bumps. To have a child is to forever have your heart walking around outside your body all right. It’s also having your heart bumped, bruised, and kicked around from time to time as well.

Checking her later for bumps (none), bruises (a couple), and her overall take on the situation, I was heartened to find her the same sunny sprite she’s always been. “I’m fine!” she said. “It was fun!” she assured me.

She’s old enough to empathize with the feelings of others, so I told her the theory of the hearts of mothers being their children and of hearts walking around outside their bodies.

She smiled, as always, and then said cheerily “I am your heart on an ADVENTURE!”

That she is. Indeed

There are no words that suffice when you learn that a child has died. None.

Nothing is big enough. Strong enough. Soothing enough. You want your words to be a balm to soothe the soul. A blanket to envelop - and even ward off - the grief. And yet it is not possible.

I did not know Madeline Alice Spohr (11/11/07 - 4/7/09). I didn’t have to. I didn’t have to click through the hundreds of links posted about this baby and see the gorgeous blue eyes and winsome smile of a precious, cherubic baby to know she was the light of her parents’ world.  But I did.

I didn’t have to see the numerous links to the many people touched by the loss of this baby to know that her absence will touch many lives. But I did.

And now there are no words.

If there is anything that can bring me up short from my nave-gazing self-absorbed life it is realizing that the majority of what I stress over - my weight, my business, my finances - doesn’t amount to a hill of beans big picture wise.

I do not know her parents but it struck me to realize that on April 7 while I was probably worrying about my weight, or my wallet, they were descending into Hell. That for the rest of their days - fifty years from now or more - the loss of a child will be as much a part of who they are as their eye color or height.

I did not have to meet Maddie to know that the world is a lesser place today without her.

We wish there was something we could do.  Say. But what we really wish is that there was something we could change.

But there are no words.

Can this relationship be saved?

No, not my husband and I. We’re cool. What I’m talking about is myself and my son. When it comes to cleaning, my eleven year old son thinks a horizontal surface is a space onto which he can drop trading cards, old homework, various action figures, and tiny plastic parts barely visible to the naked eye belonging to erector sets he does not even remember owning.

 He calls these spaces “my room just how I like it.” 

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I know this is a blog about life and all the funny little things that can happen when living it. I hope you generally enjoy it. Yet, that’s the thing about life, its not always happy. 

We learned this summer about a little boy in our community who was gravely injured in a backyard accident doing nothing more than the exact same thing countless people do everyday without incident.  His injury is probably extremely rare. One in a million even.

 I can only imagine what his mother is going through. Reality and statistics must mean nothing when it’s your child. Your child is that one and suddenly that one is a very big and important number. 

When that door opens and your child – or his health - is standing on the other side and you are powerless to help it must be the most difficult thing in the world. How impossible to accept that you, who were born to be this child’s mother, cannot make it all better. 

I always imagine that parents of an ill or injured child were in my shoes not too long ago. Unless they were born ill, everyone who has a sick or injured child once had a healthy child which means they’re not very different from me or you at all. Their child was a “normal” happy and healthy kid who left shoes by the door and milk on the counter and lost toys between the sofa cushions. And then, just like that, in the blink of an eye, the unthinkable – unspeakable - happens. Thus, they were all me at one point. Going about their daily life, enjoying themselves but maybe taken it all for granted too (at least I know I do). Then they – we - are struck with the powerful realization that life is so fragile and that the delicate balance of our health, happiness, and very existence is held together by a very fine thread which can snap so easily and without warning. That is when you realize that nothing in this life is so sacred that it cannot be taken away.  

Matters. I’ve heard so many tragic stories like this one lately that my heart hurts. I don’t mean to be melodramatic but it’s true. Life seems so unbearably fragile lately.  I am a pessimist. I tend to see the glass half-empty. I believe that carrying an umbrella will prevent the rain. I have to predict the worst in order that I might be pleasantly surprised if it does not come to pass. Maybe that’s the key…always expect it.  

I hope we can all take the time to appreciate the simple moments that really aren’t so simple at all. To remember that what matters is health and family and friends, and safe harbor.  

Not housing rates, the global market, the race for the presidency or the price of gasoline.

Tonight I’m thinking about all the children – and their parents – for whom fate turned on a dime. Or a lump, a bump, a bad break, or bad brakes. All the lives impacted in the moment when time – and reality –were forever altered. For all those whose lives are sharply divided by a distinct “before” and “after.” 

Today I want to hug my children a little harder, be kinder to my friends, and say an extra special prayer for all of us whose destinies and realities are waiting right around the corner. It says so much about what we have and what we think is important that what we think we cannot bear to lose and what we can survive are two different things. That what we think is untouchable and important really isn’t. That in the end the only thing that cannot be destroyed is our faith. It is the power to help us and carry us through. 

In truth, it is shameful how often I pray that I am not tested, even as I pray for those that are.

 He is wanted for transgressions against humanity. His alleged crime spree includes such offenses as touching, being “weird,” “totally annoying” and, on occasion, “looking at me funny.” He is a master of disguise and even in the midst of an offense may appear sweet, sincere and wholly innocent. He is impervious to solitary confinement and his recidivism rate is high.

 He is a ten-year-old big brother.   

He lives, or so I am told, to make his little sister miserable. The victim further claims that I have “always liked him better.”  

When brought to trial his defense is both simple and swift. He makes counterattacks against his alleged victim. Apparently, he feels the same way about her. 

He further contends “I always side with her.” 

And me without my black and white referee’s jersey and whistle.  

Snap. If you felt the faintest quiver of a vibration not unlike a small earthquake recently, it was merely my last nerve snapping. This after two non-stop hours of “stop touching me!” “Mo-om he’s looking at me!” “STOP!!! Stop it! STOP ITTTTTT!”  

I can buy that sibling rivalry is “normal”, but to what extent before it constitutes a felony?  

I have had to point out to my eldest child on more than one occasion that one of the benchmarks for my success as a parent was assisting his survival to adulthood. My success in this endeavor was not looking promising as he had his little sister quite nearly over the edge.  

You can poke, prod, tease, torment and tickle-torture her but there is one thing you simply cannot, must not, do. 

You must not mess with her stuffed dog. His name is Chips and he is her favorite. She loves him madly and wants only the best for him. He sleeps with her at night, and spends his days either accompanying her to school or, on occasion, lounging around on the sofa awaiting her return. He is small, perhaps eight inches in length, and weighs just a tad more than air. He is light, compact, and one would think, easy to avoid. 

To our son, her big brother, he is, of course irresistible. The boy must mess with that stuffed dog every single solitary chance he gets. Chips, as you can imagine, makes a marvelous football.  

He is a good boy. Sweet, sensitive, caring. We get compliments on him all the time I swear. Why then, does he get this gleam – almost a glint really – in his eye and set his sights on tormenting his sister so often?  

Why does she, conversely, continue to rise to the bait? 

Therein lies the eternal question: Which came first? “She started it!” or “He touched my stuff!” 

Theory. One fateful day when all the yelling in the world wasn’t working, I theorized that the boy provokes her purely out of boredom and the enjoyable predictability of getting his sister’s goat. If attention is the goal, I reasoned, then what if his sibling simply refused to take the bait? Wouldn’t that basically disarm the situation? Good to know I hadn’t wasted that semester I spent sleeping through Child Psych 101 after all!  

Thus armed with my newly formed “better parenting through psycho-babble” mindset, I was fairly chomping at the bit for the sibling rivalry games to begin. Forget getting in touch with my inner child. I was going to talk some sense into my outer children. It seemed wise to start with the seven year old. They tend to be more gullible at that age.  

Predictably soon after, our golden girl came raving into the kitchen, temper flaring so hot she nearly had steam coming out of her ears. “He’s making that noise again and he knows I hate it!” “He keeps humming louder just to BUG ME!”  

I was so ready for this.   

“Well honey does that make you FEEL like he doesn’t respect your wishes? Do you FEEL like he needs to listen to what matters to you and take your feelings into consideration? Do you feel like you might want to sit down and discuss it when you’ve had time to calm down and not react in anger?” 

Eyes wide she gazed in amazement (at my obvious wisdom no doubt). She stood, completely disarmed and, quite frankly, distracted from her hatred of her brother just moments before (see how good I am? I should write a book!).  

Then she said the words that made me really feel me merit as a mother:  

“No, Mommy. That makes me FEEL like hurting him!”  

Hey, I tried. 

And, for the record, she started it.