Reminding ourselves that we could do it too

When I read a news piece several months ago about a father who forgot to drop his child off at daycare, leaving it to die in his car while he worked, it haunted me. How horrible to be responsible for the death of one’s own child. Even if it’s inadvertent. How in the world does the spouse cope? How does the parent go on? It seems such a silly way to go.

But still, even then, it scared me. It scared me because I thought my husband could do it. He occasionally forgets where he is going when he’s driving. It would be just as possible to forget a quiet, sleeping baby.

Since River was born, I’ve also worried about my own ability to forget. It helps a lot that I’m not working, that we both have reasonable stress levels, that we don’t shuttle River around very often. But still, you never know.

This article is one of the best written and most powerful news pieces I have read in a while. Read it to remember your own fallibility, to not rush to judgment, to think about how to protect your own children before an inadvertent mistake causes such tragedy.