Thoughts on Tragedy

Wendell and I mark our favorite websites in different places on the computer.  As near as I can tell, he never looks at my extensive lists in the "Bookmarks Menu" and I ignore his little words that go underneath the URL.  Until yesterday.

The site said, "On the Wing...y everyone."  I'm everyone and so I put the mouse over that name.  It said, "kelseaandsavvy.blogspot."  I like the Savvy Shopper site and wondered if this was similar.  It wasn't.  It was a blog about the girls who were killed on the train tracks, here in Utah a week or so ago. (Find the story here.)

The blog was set up, I'm assuming, to post the medical progress of the younger sister who survived the initial accident.  But just a couple of days later, she succumbed to her injuries and passed away.  So the blog is brief, comprised of just a few posts.

One post is called, "Don't Judge Me" and it address the obvious issues of "what were they thinking?"  The sister's mother writes, "Playing on train tracks sounds like a silly thing to do, but not to these girls.
It was a beautiful, fall day in the canyon, the leaves were starting to change colors, the sun was getting ready to set and the three muskuteers had their camera in hand.  Only a few minutes prior to the accident Savannah had posted a message on her Facebook sharing the fun she was having."

It was naive, to be sure, playing around active train tracks of fast moving trains.  It was, but one foolish decision made by teenagers.  (Surely, none of us ever did anything that foolish in our teens, right?)  This one decision cost these girls their lives, but one could hardly say that they deserved what they got.

Their mother believes that the girls were not on the tracks themselves, but in the 3 foot space between the tracks.  What they didn't know, because they were teenagers, was that the force of the wind coming from the fast moving trains would be enough to blow them into the train's path.

The mother addresses some of the what if's that only serve to drive the bereaved crazy. Then says this, "We can spend every day of our lives hiding in our homes, hoping to avoid [tragedy and] heartache, but when it come[s] down to it what we'll [lose] is the opportunity to experience this beautiful life that God has blessed us with."

I think that is wise.  We can live in fear every time a loved one leaves our sight that something bad might happen.  Or we can press forward, putting our own lives and the lives of our loved ones in God's hands.  We can choose faith that no matter what the future holds, God is already there, waiting for us, loving us, helping us through whatever trials come our way.