Life’s potential.
I don’t even know where to begin. I don’t even know how to avoid being a rambling idiot.
This happened this weekend in the town where I went to college. A young man, a student at the same college, celebrated his 21st birthday early Saturday morning. He was found in the river that runs to the west of downtown, only a few hundred feet from the “Square” where many of the bars in town are located. (All my thoughts are with his family and with the college community rocked by the life cut short.)
Sadly, this is not the first alcohol-related drowning in the state of Wisconsin this year. And a few years back, a later graduate of my high school also passed away in the same manner. (As an aside, you can google “La Crosse drownings” and you find results that suggest a conspiracy theory about a serial killer. Who knows. This is not about that.)
This saddens me. This disturbs me. This makes me reflect.
I write of chronic conditions for which I have been diagnosed that come with the potential to shorten my life. I wrote of an acute illness I experienced that came with the potential to end my life. But I forget those college years (and a few years after), when I ran a bit wild and did some things under the influence of alcohol that came with the potential to harm my well-being. So did some of my friends.
Which leads me to question…how do some of us escape unwise choices unscathed, and others do not?
Posted on March 5, 2012, in Memories, Writing. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
I think that http://littlewhitecoats.blogspot.com/ says it best. “Our life stories and the history of the world are written by the same hand.’
Oh Rachel, so sad! I’ve thought the same thing over the years. When I watched my kids as teenagers do some stupid stuff I would fear for their safety, all the time realizing that I did some of that same stupid stuff. No answers here, but lots of hugs and commiseration.