Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans

maybe i was the big bopper in a past life.
I see in my mind's eye the plane as it
jostles and struggles to stay in the air
and the pilot slowly succumbs to the turbulent storm.
The terror.
The disbelief
hey, just a really rough flight. We'll be on the ground, warm and safe in our rooms.
It's not until the final few seconds that the realization hits...Maybe I'll survive the crash...

I was watching H play with his little girl, who is almost two, singing to her and throwing her hands around as she laughed and giggled. For the first time in my life, I really felt the hole that it must leave in a child's heart to lose a parent, and how hard it must be to die knowing that you're leaving this beautiful, vulnerable creature behind to fend for itself.
It made me think about my dad, who was three when his dad died. The lone memory he has is of his dad, L, singing "them bones" to him.
In seeing D, I get how even at three, S was a sentient person with feelings and intellect, despite the lack of memories.
The void must have been intense; imagine the beliefs that were created, the unimaginable grief and fear and helplessness he was ensconsed in. Life altering. Life shaping.
For the first time, I also got that leaving this earth must have been devistating for L,
him knowing that he wouldn't get to be part of his boy's world, his life, and barely his imagination and memory.