damn

Given my historical (lack-of) performance as a pen pal, I am not surprised to find I have many blog entries in draft format and yet have found none of them ready for posting recently. These are the electronic equivalent to the dusty, musty notes I occasionally come across in my collection of crap. They are in my handwriting but they're no longer from me. They're from a girl I used to be, usually about a boy I used to like (or grew to hate), written to a friend I seldom talk to but still adore.

Today in particular I am glad I haven't yet posted about my fairly boring misadventures as of late. A major clean up effort, a few failed seal rescues, a tardy attempt at something romantic for Valentine's day... they all wither in comparison to the significance of the news I received last night.

My second cousin, my cousin's teenage daughter, was in a car accident yesterday. After hitting some ice on the road, she's now, I'm told, brain dead. Her body's still functioning, so she's trapped in a world of feeding tubes and bed pans. She should be going to prom, filling out college applications. She should be worried about teen pregnancy, not bed sores.

So I am humbled. My life is so unreasonably happy and trivial. And I am heartbroken. I've actually never met my second cousin. Though I hold her mom dear in my heart, I'm sure to her I'm still a freckle faced pre-teen with bad hair and no boobs, wearing Izod shirts and Toughskins jeans that do anything but flatter. Our families are so separated (by years and miles), that I wonder if I even deserve to feel the sadness that I do. And yet, we're still connected (by our folks, by the phone) and so I join the McGowans in their grief.

Today I hug my husband a little bit closer as I am reminded how unpredictable life can be. I am grateful for all I have and sorry for all that's lost. My body may be in California, but my heart is in Pennsylvania, holding vigil by the bedside of a cousin.