6 Minutes Wrestling with Life

How Long Is - For A While?

I don't know if we each have a destiny,
Or if we're all just floating around
Accidental-like on a breeze.
But I think maybe it's both.
Maybe both are happening at the same time

Forrest Gump

August 21st, 2009

"Jess, why don't you come sit down and watch this movie with us?"

I asked my daughter in an attempt to spend more time with her before she headed back to college. In a few days she would be returning to the Fashion Institute of Technology for her sophomore year.

"It's Serendipity, with John Cusack."

"I think I am just going to go to sleep for a while..."

Jess said as she spun around the wooden bannister and headed up the stairs to her bedroom.

That didn't sound right...

Usually, Jess would say, "I'm going to bed – goodnight," why did she say, "I'm going to go to sleep for a while?

That was weird.

Without anything else to go on, other than my parental radar, I dismiss the slight change in her "good night" wording and convince myself Jess is just tired after coming home from a ten-hour shift at work, where she has worked the whole summer in a retail fashion boutique in the Hampton's.

In a few seconds, my parental radar's antenna comes back down to earth and I get involved in the movie once again.

"Serendipity, it is one of my favorite words. It is just a nice sound for what it means a fortunate accident. Except, I don't really believe in accidents. I believe fate is behind everything. I think fate sends us little signs, and it is how we read those signs that determine whether we are happy or not."

BOOM.

"What was that?" I ask my wife, BettyJane, as I immediately do what any normal person does when they hear a noise in the middle of the night.

I wait for the second noise to confirm I heard the first noise.

There is nothing but an eerie silence.

I am still not convinced the silence negated the first boom, so I get up and put on the outside lights to the house.

I look outside.

Everything seems fine.

I check the garage – everything looks normal.

No other noises.

I'm satisfied there is no home invasion in process, the car is not being robbed and my family is safe, so I sit back down on the couch and continue watching the movie.

As soon as I sit down, I hear the second, louder noise – this time
A THUD.

BettyJane jerks up off of the couch and dashes upstairs, instinctively yelling "JESS! JESS! JESS!"

We didn't know it at the time, but the first BOOM was Jess losing her balance and falling into her closet door.

The second THUD was her closet door collapsing and hitting the wall, and sliding to the ground.

I follow BettyJane and her instinctive motherly hysteria up the stairs.

We both get to the top of the stairs at the same time.

In the hallway to Jess's bedroom, we see our twelve-year-old son, Travis, holding his sisters limp body in his arms.

As soon as Travis sees my wife and me, he drops his sister's body and backs up to the edge of the wall, like someone would do after they accidentally shot someone and stood over the dead body.