Contemplating...

I read a story today about a 25 year old girl who was involved in a car accident in Venice on Friday night. She was stopped at a stop sign, waiting to make a right turn, pulled out and was hit by an LAPD squad car. Witnesses estimate the squad car was going about 60 miles an hour on a street where the limit is far lower. The cops didn't have their lights on. There is an investigation underway to determine who was at fault. The officers survived with minor injuries. The girl was not so lucky. Her family took her off life support on Sunday.

This story was newsworthy because there are a flurry of accusations from witnesses at the scene that the LAPD is attempting to cover up the officers' fault in the accident. Among the allegations the police were driving too fast, it took more than ten minutes for an ambulance to arrive on the scene despite no less than ten police vehicles arriving within minutes of the accident. Many of the witnesses living in the apartment complex situated on the corner the accident occurred have posted comments on this site about what they saw and how the whole thing was mishandled by LAPD.

I spent some time reading the comments today, learning the name of the victim, discovering more about her through the kind things her family and friends had to say. They had set up a Facebook page for her too, a place to post pictures of her, recall happy memories. As I clicked through the photos, read the comments, it made me think about how precious this all is. How brief our journey can be on this Earth and how very valuable our time here is. I'm not sure this is something most of us consider very often. I know I probably don't appreciate the briefness of it all.

I don't mean to say that I should fixate on my inevitable end. Rather, I want to keep present the gift that living is- cradle it in my consciousness so that I can love this moment. It won't be money or houses or jobs, cars, clothes that will matter when it's all over. Why make it matter now? For me, this life is about holding close the people I love, unabashedly sharing those feelings with them, laughing my ass off and not taking it all so seriously. All any of us really has is this moment. I choose to love it.

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