And another thing...

When your number is up...

We had a death at the Undisclosed Customer Service Center™™. Very sad, the girl was only 26 years old. She had three kids, who were in the car with her when it hit black ice, left the road and hit a pole. The kids walked away without injury, including 2 of her sister's children, but she was killed instantly.

When you hear these things the first thing you think, of course, is how sad for the kids. But then you have to wonder? What made this day and time her day and time?

I won't pretend we were friends, we weren't. I think it is insincere and disrespectful when a person is suddenly inundated with 'oh what a wonderful person she was' after they are dead. I am sure even Mother Theresa had people in her life that thought she was a jerk. Frankly I didn't even know this girl outside of work, but we spoke.

I remember a couple months ago, she was planning a trip to Ireland and Germany. The plans came right out of the blue, I think it was her uncle who offhandedly offered to pay for a trip for her. She didn't even know if she could get the vacation time, since she had just gotten rehired at the Undisclosed Customer Service Center™™, but it was one of those things, she said, that she just had to go for. She wasn't even going to tell her boyfriend till after she had tickets in hand, for fear he might try and talk her out of it. She didn't worry about what to do with the kids, they had fathers who could and frankly should step up. This was something she felt she may never get another chance to do. You think someone was trying to tell her something?

When she said Ireland, specifically Belfast, I looked at her funny. "Why would you want to go to Belfast? Not exactly a stable place to begin with." She said it was just something she always wanted to do and added 'before I die' in that sort of flippant way a person does. But I don't think she was back a week before this accident happened.

I didn't get a chance to hear about her trip, but others have said she had a blast. If I remember correctly she would spend some time in Ireland, take a small plane or possibly a train to Germany and back to Ireland then home. In all that time, including her stint in Belfast, I assume without incident, she really was doing something 'before she died'.

Makes you think. What do we hope to accomplish in this life before we die? And how many of us will never have time to do anything? Just last week there was a 14 year old kid that the boy knew killed in a car accident. What did he get to do before he died?

In these cases I really do hope there is reincarnation.

For the sake of children and young mothers.