This post originally appeared on DC Metro Moms on June 24, 2009
When regular life looks scary: the DC Metro crash
I’ll never forget the first time I was in the car with a mommy friend alone, sans kids. Ahead of us, a Metro train was slowing into a station, and I instinctively called out, “Look! Metro train!” before I realized my transportation-happy toddler was not there to be entertained. Still, I got a kick out of the fact that his presence in my life had made me get a kick out of something that used to seem so ordinary. Even when he wasn’t around.
And then, now, the tragedy. At least nine people dead. So many questions. Such scary images, the worst thankfully not on the front page.
My son: Happily oblivious, luckily not grabbing today’s paper as he does when a zoo animal or race horse catches his eye
Me: Thankful especially this day — but also this week with news from Iran and, really, every day — that he is at least two years away from reading (I hope) and doesn’t know what K-I-L-L-E-D means.
I know it’s more likely for me to get us both injured by my hurriedly finishing a cell phone conversation in Virginia so I won’t get a non-hands-free ticket in DC than it is for something to happen to us on the Metro. And I know the small fears I have to live with are small compared to what other parents elsewhere in the world face.
But I don’t know how to do scary with my son. I haven’t even told him that the neighborhood mama duck got hit by a car last week.
It’s a lot easier to keep a baby in a bubble than it is a thinking little dude.
I guess the best thing I could teach him if I have to confront this nightmare is to send loving thoughts to people who are hurt and sad.
Which is maybe something we should be doing all the time anyway.
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