This one’s gonna be rough; reader discretion advised
Today my friend saw a hearse with a sign on it, “baby on board.”
The reactions in our group chat were universally horrified and also trying to logic out what was going on.
My guess was that it was a decommissioned hearse that someone bought, and the sticker may or may not represent a (live) baby.
Someone else thought it was just someone being edgy (also with the decommissioning).
But it made me think back to college and how this kind of joke would have made me laugh, a lot, back then. Because, yes, edgy.
But now that I am older and have a child of my own and friends with children…I just can’t.
And then it made me think about the fact that even though I know many (any is too many) widows my own age; and even though several friends have lost children (one in infancy, one in utero to anencephaly, one to fentanyl laced marijuana); I have not yet known a child who died. (Not counting my own peers lost to meningitis or suicide in high school; I mean people who I would consider a child.)
I am so lucky.
(And I’m anxious that I may have forgotten someone; that weighs on me too.)
Emilybook 