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I just got off the phone with a dear friend. We both live in my hometown, the town in which I spent many a fine Halloween night like this night. K. called me because something happened on her street -- a street that serves as a short cut between two more major arteries, a street where residents have been begging for a stoplight. She was sitting outside at the outdoor firepit with neighbors, having wine and giving candy to Trick or Treaters. It was a crisp and lovely autumn New England night. Then they heard screeching tires. Then there was a noise unlike any other -- a deep breaking thudding sound. And then, quickly, another one.
A grandmother and her costumed grandson who had been crossing the street were both dead. Over ten feet away was a crumpled and spilled bag of candy. A silver car was off the road with steam coming out of it.
Ambulances. Police cars, their lights flashing in the dark. People running. Crying. Fire engines.
My little town doesn't experience much in the way of accidental or deliberate deaths. There's not much crime, and most accidents are not fatal. And our kids mostly live to be adults, at least in as significant percentages as other small northeast towns, whatever that is.
But this week we have been hit hard. Last weekend, I walked into my back yard and heard awful noises. It was like listening to a war zone in the distance. It turns out our local Sportsman's Club was having an automatic-weapon-pumpkin-shoot. People rent automatic weapons from the club, or bring their own. Then they shoot at mounds of pumpkins. Miles away I could hear them shooting, shooting. It went on for hours. It sounded like listening to Baghdad from the suburbs during a time of heavy fire. It was mostly grown men turning pumpkin faces into mush and oozing seed.
But then, at that same shoot, an eight year old, shooting an Uzi, killed himself.
The gun was too much for a little boy to manage, and while discharging bullets it recoiled up and shot him. I cannot begin to discuss the details without losing control, so I will send you to a local paper's account.
He was eight years old. Eight. With an Uzi.
And on tonight's news I heard that we have lost a resident who was fighting in Iraq. It was a non-combat death. They are "investigating". He was 20.
I was going to write about something else tonight, but my heart is too heavy with dead bodies. People's children, three of them. A grandmother.
Tonight I can't write about children and gun laws, or the need for traffic lights, or the need to end the war. We have all enough common sense to let our minds write those sorts of editorials.
Tonight I am going to ask you all to live a bit more carefully.
And I am going to ask those of you who pray, to pray -- and those who send energy, to send it. Pray and send and think of all those families tonight who mourn, that they can somehow find solace. Pray/send/think for all those around the world who grieve for children tonight -- from my little town to your home, to Darfur, Iraq and beyond.
How many times does the universe have to remind us that life is fragile?
Here is where living carefully comes in. Care-FULLY. We are in a world with each other. What one of us does, affects other people. It's like a big spider web, and when something bounces over there, I can feel it over here. When something bounces over here, you can feel it over there. Four people dead is going to affect many more than four. And the loss of their life contributions will affect even more.
Maybe it isn't much in the big scheme of losses that four people from my little town died this week in accidents. But maybe this little town is a model for other towns, everywhere in the world - where sometimes people could have been saved if someone had just been careful.
Drive in a way that it would be easy to stop if you need to.
Don't get casual for a second if you have a gun and children.
If you oppose the war, stand up ad speak out.
Don't forget to make sure that everyone you love knows it. Give them frequent refresher courses. Go send some emails, write some notes, bake some cookies for them -- something that lets them know how
