Random acts...

“If you love somebody, you had

better hurry up and tell them.”

– Author Unknown

He was riding his bicycle on the service road just off Interstate 5 when a car left the freeway, came down an embankment and hit him straight on! 

What are the odds??

I’m not sure what the fellow was thinking when he got up that morning and headed out for a ride.  I am not sure what the woman driver was thinking as she headed north on the interstate.  I am sure, neither one of them expected to find themselves in proximity under any circumstances! 

Maybe the guy was thinking about work, or breakfast, or his family or the music he was listening to…the woman hurrying to work or the store or coming home from dropping off her kids…whatever.  Of all the things these two people could have conceived, in their wildest imaginations…the darkest places in the depths of their brains…this…this would NEVER have emerged into their consciousness, and yet here it was…their lives would never be the same, and I mourned for them.

Why them?  Why then?  Why not someone else?  Why not somewhere else?  Why not one minute sooner or one minute later?  The unpredictability and random acts of life exceed storylines even the most creative writers could dig out of the recesses of their minds.

This could have been anyone…it could have not happened at all.

A memory…

It was Vietnam…the early fall of 1969 and by now after nearly a year of my tour had passed.  I had found ways to compensate for being in this strange land.  A prime example was learning to sleep.  I had self-talked that I was safe, that if something happened it would be to someone else.  Fantasy?  Sure, but one does whatever it takes to normalize in the most abnormal of situations. 

I was an air traffic controller in the military and had adapted to the unnatural sounds of airplanes landing on a runway not more than 200 yards (183m) from my ‘hooch’ – the name for the plywood barracks in which we were housed.  Sleeping was also challenged during the rainy season.  There is little louder than the mind numbing decibels of monsoon rain hitting a metal roof.  One had to practically yell to hold a conversation with the person next to them.  Even then I found a way to touch that gracious ‘gift of the gods’ and fall asleep.

It is said there are two categories of people in this world…those that move dirt, and those that supervise the dirt movers.  In Vietnam, we moved a lot of dirt.

It had been a late night, and I had spent the evening at the non-commissioned officer’s (NCO) club with my best friend Bob – I slept hard.

They said the hooch took a direct hit…the navy commander probably hadn’t heard a thing and had been killed outright.  They said it was his last day ‘in country.’  He was preparing to head home…no mission to fly, but a flight to catch departing this airfield for the last, “Thank God Almighty” time.

I wondered about that man and wrote some of these thoughts then…

What had he been thinking as he counted down the days.  I wondered how many missions he had flown and how many times his life had been at risk…I wondered how often he had thanked God for a safe return to base and the cold beer in his hand to celebrate another day burned from the calendar. 

There were rituals…

We did this you know…we counted days…we celebrated when there were fewer left than there had been to stay – at first the fear of too many days ahead, with too many chances…chances for something bad to happen; then too few days with heightened sense of excitement that home grew closer, but fear that it would be snatched away at the last minute.  Even getting on that plane with 200 plus other dirty smelly GIs at the end of the tour, ran the risk of being shot down as the aircraft took off.  No sir, no sigh of relief until the airspace of the Republic of South Vietnam was somewhere in the distance behind us.

Continuing the thought…

In the early morning hours, the navy commander’s life was snatched away at the last minute…he would not be catching that flight home…at least not the one he had been anticipating.  The string of life severed from ‘his instrument’ in the universe, no longer resonating in measured harmony with anything…with anyone.

I wondered what he might have been thinking as he got up that morning.  Maybe he had been dreaming of his family and how great it would be to breathe the fresh and familiar air of his home.  Maybe he was sitting on the edge of his bed putting on his boots, in uniform for the last time…looking forward.

I didn’t hear the rockets.  I had learned to sleep…sleep in this ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ country, through most anything.  Me?  I was dreaming about my family at home and how great it would be to breathe the fresh and familiar air of my hometown.  On that morning I sat on the edge of the bed, put on my jungle boots, in uniform for yet another day and headed for breakfast. 

When I heard the news, I was struck by the complete and utter unpredictability of life…He was gone, his family’s lives would never be the same, and I mourned him. 

The car did not come off the freeway that year and hit my bicycle…it hit that navy commander's.

I wondered, why his hooch, not mine?  Why him, not me?  Why not later or sooner? 

Each of us has stories of the randomness of life…the unexpected moments that change everything.  Not all are lethal…many act to change life in the most remarkable of ways…These kinds of things, however, remind me to appreciate and try and be as much in the ‘moment’ as possible…because one never knows…

- ted