I Worry

I come from a long line of worriers.  My grandfather was fastidious about being never less than ten minutes early for anything and thus; I nibble the insides of my cheek whenever I am cutting it close.  My mother was convinced my siblings and I would drown in the turbulent undertows of Lake Michigan and to this day, I rarely wade in deeper than my shins.  And me?  Every time my baby tries to gum the shopping cart handle, I am certain the person before us had strep throat or dribbled raw ground beef onto the child’s seat.  As a result, Bridget will probably bathe in antibacterial gel as an adult and contract some rare microorganism all because her mom didn’t spoon-feed her enough germs as a toddler.


Growing up I was a nervous kid.  I agonized about a “B” soiling my Jr. High transcript and contemplated whether my sixth grade perm made me look like a lion. Resounding yes.  I fretted over outfits and secret crushes and whether or not my parents were going to get a divorce. Since everyone’s parents were seemingly getting a divorce.  I vexed about not knowing the names of all the New Kids on the Block and someone asking me to recite them.  In public.  In front of said crush.  Later, I developed a knot in my stomach about going off to college without ever being kissed, and then worried endlessly how I would fare if the outlandish opportunity ever presented itself.

As a teenager, death became something I worried about a lot.  After seeing a Hollywood thriller where a character is impaled by a ladder shooting through the windshield, I stopped driving behind maintenance vans.  I had this morbid notion that if I conjured up every possible awful scenario then I would be safe.  What if an intruder was hiding in my closet right NOW or I was attacked by a rabid squirrel or a funnel web spider or an Irukandji jelly fish?  What if this building collapsed while I was eating tater tots in the second floor cafeteria or this plane plummeted into the Atlantic?  Check. Check. Check. Check.  I figured what were the chances of me premeditating my own fluke demise.

But, I will tell you that I never once worried about being divorced at 27.  Never even considered it. I never thought my father would become so depressed that he would spend several years exclusively living in the basement.  I can tell you that a friend’s sister-in-law likely never worried about being diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer as a newlywed and nonsmoker.  And another who never imagined she would have to endure two consecutive miscarriages.  And I guarantee you the parents in Newtown, CT didn’t give a second thought to dropping their chatty 1st graders off for school the Friday before Christmas break.  No.  They were worried that the pork chops they had bought last Sunday were spoiling in their fridge or that Noah would be ridiculed during lunch for bringing olive loaf.  They were worried about saving enough for Michael’s college fund and whether or not Anne would spot Elf on The Shelf for sale in Target.  But, they were not worried their kids were going to be shot during story time.

This was the first school shooting since I became a parent.  I know there were others that came before. I lament that there have been others: Columbine. Virginia Tech.  But, this one leveled me.  With the news flashing overhead, I saw my sweet one year old, pretending to roar like a lion at her Fisher Price Farm set, while perched on her tippy toes and I thought… that’s her in four years.  I was humbled by the sheer randomness.  The blatant unfairness.  Why those little kids?  Why that town?  Why that school?  Why any school?  Because it’s a beacon of our kids’ safety?  Because there are people out there so disturbed that they are compelled to destroy what is most pure?

I don’t pretend to have any answers.  Gun control.  Mental health assistance.  The fact remains randomness permeates everything around us. People do win $250 million jackpots just as people do die in tsunamis while vacationing on a beach in Thailand.  Good people.  There are a whole bunch of straws out there and a few in the pack are inexplicably short.  All of us pretty much go through life not knowing what we hold until we are forced to stare down at the tip of that thing and then we realize.   I pulled a short one.

The truth that is so terrifying as a parent is not how little control we have over own lives, but the paltry influence we have over protecting our kids.  I worry now about Bridget choking on a teething biscuit or drowning in two inches of lukewarm bath water, but those are all within my motherly domain.  Home.  She is growing and her world is expanding and pretty soon, she will be out there on her own, coexisting with all the kind, evil, and indifferent.  She will be scampering down the sidewalk with a backpack swinging off her shoulder and driving behind vans with ladders on top.  She will be wading too deep in the ocean or tiptoeing too close to the edge.  And really there is nothing I can do to clip her wings.  I just have to trust that she is sensible.  I have to hope she is just your average, every day, American kid. And that she doesn’t pull a short straw.  It is this glaring vulnerability, the utter helplessness, which far supersedes any amount of bacteria-laden raw meat in a shopping cart.

This is my new worry.