Stuff happens. If you live long enough, it’ll happen to you. If you don’t, it’s still “stuff”, only you just don’t care any more. “If only I had”s are their own cruel joke, giving the mourner the illusion that his or her actions could have made a difference, the illusion that life’s “stuff” is under our control. No, I don’t visualize a sadistic God tossing confetti as he skips among the stars. That, too, is a fantasy that there is purpose and control in life. The only good an “if only” or “what if” can offer is a chance for us, as collective humanity, to take a stab at “next time”.
We give my daughter a loving home and the best care and education possible, and have focused on the “next”. With a different obstetrician, I had two healthy sons at age 38 and 40. And, a couple of years ago, I helped a colleague pregnant with twins avoid the tragedy of oxygen and nutritional deprivation in her babies by advising her to seek early high-risk care for her slow-growing fetuses. Ms. Richardson’s rare heartbreaking case may help another skier in the future avoid head injury by wearing a helmet, or prevent a morbid outcome by encouraging head trauma victims to be alert for warning signs of trouble and to seek early care.
But, despite my best intentions to avoid “what if”s, I couldn’t help but to also play out a scenario in my mind this past week after hearing the details of Ms. Richardson’s tragedy. A scenario of “If only the paramedics had insisted on transporting her immediately; if only the local hospital had traumatic brain injury services; if only helicopter transport had been available to Montreal.” Somewhere in the bottom of my heart, I so wished and wish that all life’s tragedies could be reversed by the power of an “if only”. That my friend’s God would put down His basket of confetti and hear our pleas.
Alas, I fear that only our imagination fills the sounds of silence from above.
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