Why?

A simple three lettered question. Why?

Children. We endure 9 months of backbreaking anguish as we carry them to their birth. Then for a short time we spend endless hours adoring their every movement, noticing such details as how often they yawn, or blink their eyes. As infants there isn't much they do that we don't love, adore, and cherish. We spend endless hours trying to share our amazement with others. Our babies. They are unique, that is until they turn 2, and the tantrums begin. Still we amaze ourselves at how we endure the "terrible twos" and allow these special beings of ours to coexist in our homes.

Too soon childhood passes on to the teenage years. Still starstruck with amazement at the accomplishments of our little ones, the ultimate happens, the driver's license. The amazement passes to worry, and fear. And it never leaves.

This week for the second time in the 13 years I have lived in this house, a young woman, a child, a baby, has been taken from us. Away from life, away from her own future. Away. An accident. It is not known why it happened the way it did, but it did. Our world once again loses a bright spot, a shining star, a lovely baby. An accident. Why?

She was 17. She was driving. She hit a tree and a pole. She was only seconds from her home. She died quickly. Her family is devastated. Those that know her family are at a loss. A mother's baby, gone, a father's pride and joy, gone. Why?

It happened about 10 years ago too. To another family in the same area. That time the baby was 15, she wasn't driving. She was seconds from her home. She too was snatched from the dreams and hopes of her parents, and the comfort of her siblings. Why?

Our children bring such happiness into our lives and all those with whom they have contact. We, as parents, love them with an intensity that only we parents can truly understand. We fill them with our hopes, our excitement, our dreams, until they start to form their own. Then we share in what is to be their person, the gifts they will give to the world, and how they will do their part to make the world better. Our children are our future. That is until the ultimate happens, an accident.

We dare not forget. We must remember. The infancy, the first word, the first step, the tantrums. The memories are all that is left. Her voice, her perfume, her laughter, we struggle to remember, and long to be relieved of this struggle. Life must continue, embedded in the shadows of what will never be. She is not forgotten. She cannot be hidden from memory, for she is alive in the spirit of those who loved her. Both girls live in the memory and hearts of those that knew them, loved them, and now that memory helps their families as they create a new life without them. But why?

Rest in peace,Carolyn and Annie.