I was going to pick up my kids at the airport when I got hit by a truck and died.
I can't remember how it happened. I remember being upset. My kids didn't really want to visit me.
They wanted to hang out with their friends.
Ever since the divorce they had divided their time between me and their mother on vacations. It wasn't really a bad thing. But I can imagine it was annoying for them, having to pack up and take planes and do things differently with their friends.
Particularly as they got older, when the more they were different from their friends, the more those differences were noticebale. Why me? was a question I figured they must be constantly thinking.
And I never knew what to tell them. Some parents aren't made for each other. And kids grow up.
But I tried to be a good dad. But so what? To them I was also an old man at the age of 46.
For 200 million years, to be 46 years old meant I was probably dead. The human brain hasn't caught up, in an evolutionary sense, how in the past 100 years alone, human lifespans have gone up.
So for the teenage brain, a 46 year old person was as good as dead. Which means, the teenage brain better start bonding with their teenage friends so that if the lion chases them in the jungle then their peers can help them, not the 46 year old who had spent his life protecting them. He no longer could protect them and their genes were screaming with fear that they must survive.
Their plane was going to land at midnight. Their mother had to push the onto the plane. She told me they were sobbing in the airport and the stewardesses were looking at her like she was somehow abusing them by forcing them on the plane. There were New Year's Eves parties they were missing.
"I don't want to go," and my oldest was crying. She couldn't stop. Maybe a boy she liked would kiss the wrong girl at the Christmas Eve party.
This possible event was huge in her head. The possibility of never seeing me again was not in her head at all. It was impossible. I had always been there but now it was important to make sure the right boy kissed the right girl.
And then I died. I didn't mean to. Something happened. Maybe my mind was on the kids. I wanted to have a good vacation also. How good would it be if they were crying all the time about parties they were missing. I was driving and my resentment for my own kids was getting bigger and bigger. They were my kids but I kind of hated them at that moment, trying to get to the airport on time, weaving in and out of car lanes while the rain started.
I'm a firm believer that you buy experiences and not material goods. You ever get a Christmas gift and it seems nice and you use it for a week and then you forget all about it? Like a juicer? ugh.
So I rented a nice house on the beach. I rented a ping pong table, a pool table, arcade games, all sorts of toys for the pool. I wanted them to have a fun time. A fun experience. I planned movies, dinners, miniature golf, tennis, and if they were bored, we had all the games in the house.
I wanted them to remember this for the rest of their lives. And on top of that, I wanted to have fun myself also. I don't get to rest too much. I wanted everything to be good at least one more time before they grew up and stopped visiting me at all.
So I was upset they didn't want to go. I had put so much thought into it. And money. Just when maybe money was potentially a worry for me. Jobs are never safe. The economy is never safe. Who knows what could happen.
And then...something swerved. Something that was moving fast, stopped. Two, then three, then four, then five cars, danced in slow motion under the disco lights of traffic poles and glow-in-the-dark highway lines, and passing cars that swerved out of the way. The music was the dissonant sounds of metal cracking open metal. Over and over. An explosion of life.
