Unimaginable

I adore my children. Maybe I'm more of a worrier than most -- in fact, I'm pretty sure I am. In any case, my particular species of adoration leads me to think about what would happen if I lost them. The idea terrifies me, but I can't look away. For some reason I think that considering the possibility will help me deal with my fear. As if I could convince myself that such an event could be rendered ordinary by thinking about how it happens to other people, and what would occur if it happened to me.

At lunchtime today I read the first few chapters of a novel in which the main character is a mother whose little girl -- about Cady Gray's age -- has died in an accident. I couldn't stop myself from getting emotional at the descriptions of her difficulty getting through each day as everything in her life reminded her of her daughter. My overwhelming feeling was that I wouldn't be able to cope at all. I don't know how anyone does.

And then I wonder whether that means I adore my children too much. Not that I have any choice in the matter. But my inability to keep my emotions in check at any depiction of children in peril, or grieving parents, makes it difficult for me to keep perspective. I imagine all this is normal, yet isn't it also normal to integrate death into life?