Saber Toothed Tigers

 The history of Humanity is fraught with tragedy. Thousands of years ago, children were snatched up and eaten routinely, by creatures like saber-toothed tigers. Turns out even in modern times, in more rural areas like in Africa and North Florida, kids still get taken and eaten.

These days, though, the reasons for tragedy are violence and carelessness, by other humans. And boy was last week filled with them.

Locally, a moronic barge and tug  captain somehow missed a sailboat in his path, despite perfect conditions, and ran over the camping boat. Two beautiful little girls killed, and according to my friend Joel, who knows one of the families, a third will be leaving us soon as well. Three gorgeous, full of life little girls whose parents just wanted them to be happy and live great lives, enhancing the childhoods by putting them in an old Miami camp that teaches them how to sail.

I can't even imagine the pain. Michelle, the friend close to the parents of the lingering child, must be beside herself. I'm just grateful that Dr. Barry no longer works in the PICU -- he'd have been there absorbing this abject misery. He directs said docs now, but better he keep that distance. As men age, we become more sentimental, and though a young doc's passion to save kids got him through, being closer to grandparenthood than fatherhood is unbearable, I would think.

In NYC a maniac who played high school football and no further decided his loser life was the fault of the NFL, since they "cover up" head injuries. So he strolled into a Midtown office building and shot and killed an off duty NYC cop -- a Bangladeshi immigrant living the American dream, a Haitian security guard, and 2 women business executives, both Ivy League grads -- the youngest just a few years out of Cornell.

Of course, D1 had a connection -- her rich NYC friend's cousin was friends with one of the victims, and reported that the funeral for the rising star was the saddest day of her life.

We invest SO much into our kids, and getting them educated at top colleges is an amazing milestone -- let alone the blessings of seeing them married and becoming parents. And then, in the proverbial NY minute, some loser from Vegas comes in and takes a ballpeen hammer to the beautiful stain glass life we create.

Indeed, life throws us a lot of wrinkles, as my CPA Mark malapropped -- and I guess you just have to accept that.

But again, it gives perspective. There's no "getting over" what happened to the Miami Beach or NYC families. I know -- in my career I repped more families who lost children than I care to recall. Typically the surviving parents would divorce -- unable to look at each other with that never ending grief.

And for those of us dealing with normal ups and downs -- shame on us for EVER feeling they are more than the hill of beans Bogart spoke about in Casablanca.

On a happy note, after a lovely afternoon in the Grove with my partner and brother Paul, where we ate and talked for hours, I came home to a call from Barry -- in the hood on his never ending search for a new car. Was I home? I was.

I ordered us some Carrot Express wraps, and poured ourselves the last of the Stoli Elit Mirta had given me for my birthday. And we and Wifey talked, and talked, and talked -- about how a simple act in one's life affects so many others.

In Barry's case, it was dipping on his commitment to live with Eric and me for the '83-'84 academic year -- his senior year of college and Eric and my first in grad school. That caused Eric and me to have to scramble to find alternate digs, which we did, and living upstairs was...Wifey. 

I made sure to thank Barry profusely for what he did and what that meant.

Nice to laugh on a Wednesday evening, heartily. Tough to think of all the tears.