Friday Sabbath: Little Heart Attack

(Written yesterday afternoon...)

There are events that get blown out of proportion. The storm currently blowing through Hampton Roads is the storm that I will refer to as the Old Testament storm. You may ask what right do I have to say that? There have been storms that have swept along this planet strong enough to topple buildings, uproot trees, and kill people. I have read some of the most horrific stories in which people have watched their entire families drown before their eyes.

But, at this particular moment, I don't care about those people. Because all I could hear for several minutes on the phone this afternoon was, "Your brother's car has been flooded."

I couldn't notice the lack of hysteria in my mother's voice. I couldn't mark the fact that she wasn't crying or telling me to come be with her. For a ghastly, horrific moment, all I could hear was, "Your brother's car has been flooded."

Now, my brother is fine. Through a series of fortunate events, he was removed from his car by our other brother before help arrived to pull the car out of the water. Nonetheless, I know now that the water filled the car up to my brother's legs... that he sat there and watched the interior fill up faster than he could think. I think about how scary that must have been... and my heart seizes up.

I don't give a damn about that car. I know that it's going to be a load of trouble, lots of money, and that, chances are, it will never drive again. It was a tidy, efficient Impala with XM radio and a bunch of other crap that I don't really understand. All I know is that it took me the rest of that phone call with Mom and several minutes after to just shake myself free from the terror and contact my brother to tell him that I was happy he was alright. He thanked me, said it was his fault... that he should have seen the water even though he was driving at some ungdly hour of this morning...

...I'm horrified that most of us would say something like that. Once it's all status quo again, once things are clearly the way they always are and you're still alive, we worry about the stuff. The objects. The things that did not, will not, cannot ever be brought to the point of fear that its life might be snuffed out. Whether or not the flooded area could possibly come above your head, I know that if I had been in a car filling with water that I would not necessarily be able to intellectualize all that.

Little heart attacks like this lead me down a dangerous "What if?" sort of road that easily consumes a surprise day off. My brother is fine. He's home. Safe and sound and not going to work tomorrow. But, I still see behind my eyes all these horrible things that could have happened...

And at times like this, I want to thank somebody. Anybody. Our other brother. The Ft. Eustis soldier that helped pull the car out of the water. Even Gd, whose existence still troubles me, makes the list of people I feel like I should thank. I don't want to be one of those people that can find ways to believe in Gd through subjective irrationality... but in these flashes of terror for what might have happened to someone you love as tremendously as I love my brother, something bigger than yourself has to be acknowledged. I wasn't there. I can't put any credit on the human beings available in the situation, on their courage and grit. I sit here at home and try to erase the "What if" images from my mind...

My brother is fine. Gd may still not exist. But, I'm so grateful to someone, to something, that my brother is okay. I hear the sirens screaming outside, the wind batting at the window panes, and I watch the lights flicker. Difficult to calm my nerves in this environment...

You are so important to my happiness, John.