It had been a while since my youngest of three daughters joined me for a Saturday afternoon of “to do list” tackling. You know, teens, always so busy. Some of our best conversations with our kids are held while driving from one place to another.  As they become more independent they require less of our time in getting from A to B. So, yes I was pleased, just the two of us.

Our journey home had us noticing an area of the center of the city a buzz with police activity, taped off police tape and………….the blue blanket on the road.

What compels us to do something????? I can’t answer that. What I can tell you is that we were driving around the block to park in a nearby parking lot. A short walk, it was clearly evident that the blue blanket covered a body. My teenage daughter and I sat across from the blue blanket, on the other side of the normally very busy street, next to a lady. “The lady” shared with us what she had seen, what she knew to be true. Someone had fallen? jumped? from opposite us, from the being built structure.

We sat. We sat quietly. It was weird. To the right of us the cars were buzzing by from west to east. To the left of us cars buzzing from east to west, as well as people buzzing in and out of the mall; all busy with their Saturday afternoon to do’s. This reminded me of the first funeral I went to. I recall walking out of the visitation and feeling grief, yet looking around at the busy day and wanting everything and everyone to stop! Stop! Don’t you know that someone just passed away? Life does go on BUT for this moment, I explained to my daughter that I just wanted to sit, just sit and be here for that person.

Death brings so many memories. In addition to my first funeral experience I remember being in the hospital room and standing over and touching and holding the hand and face of my passed father. What is it about death that is found taboo? Why is it that all is good while there is breath in the lungs and warmth in the body? What is it about the soul becoming troubled and the body becoming cold?

Let’s imagine for a moment that this blue blanket covered the victim of a criminal action. Let’s imagine that at least one of the police vehicles parked in the marked off area contained the perpetrator of the action. Would people have simply gasped and walked past then? Would it have roused a little more curiosity? Within this marked off city block there were just a handful of people sitting in quiet. Just as I held my father, I felt that I wanted to go, go a sit right next to the blue blanket. But, I was a good girl, I sat at a distance. To be quite honest with you I was very surprised with the area being where it was, the time of day that it was there was so little interest. Are people so fast to run away from reality? A reality of our society, our neighbors, our friends, our family members.

Perhaps this is why the blue blanket was there on the road, too many people for too long, just walked away.

It appears we are hearing more and more about suicides. Families, lives are troubled. People have lost hope. People are lonelier now than ever before. Stress levels are through the roof and you don’t need to look far for evidence of it. We hear often of suicides. Perhaps your community, most definitely the internet; yet to be SO close to it, so close to a blue blanket, is something so different. Gosh, I thought, so vulnerable.

As I sat and looked at the blue blanket, as I sat and prayer for the blue blanket I was glad. Glad that whatever, WHATEVER, pained them was done, finally done! Peace my friend.