I’ve probably written about this before, because, Heaven knows, I tend to just write from what is going through my head at the time, rather than for some betterment of mankind. (Choking on my own sarcasm) I also tend to go off on stream-0f-consciousness tangents, which is why I am having to force myself not to type a few remarks on the movie Heaven Knows, Mr. Alison.

Sometimes I think it would be sort of great if I could just say, “Oh, power that be, please let me do that over again.”  It has occurred to me that perhaps this does happen, but we don’t remember it or learn from and go ahead and do the same dumb thing again. And then maybe we have gone back and had something changed, but we just don’t know it, although dreams may sometimes hint at it.

Once, a long time ago,  a kid was standing in the hallway 15 feet behind me as I turned to shove a heavy sliding door closed. It balked and I pushed harder to no avail and got fed up and really sent it slamming toward the frame, but put my hand out to catch it before it could connect and shake the house down.

I looked down as my hand stopped the door less than a foot from the frame and saw that kid’s blond head sticking out. Who knew he could toddle so fast?  In a flash in my mind’s eye, I saw his head coming off and rolling onto the deck. To think of it now stops my thoughts cold and leaves me short of breath. I think then I may have spent the rest of the day in shock.

There have been times when I dreamed it happened that way – the way it didn’t. But what if it had? What if in a nano-second my being screamed  to make it not so, to give me that moment back – that moment when my hand shot out to stop the door?

I don’t know where I am going with this, perhaps I am steering myself to realize how many times the lamenting  “if only” preface to events should also be thankfully  applied  to non-events – that I need to understand that there is a whole lot for which to be grateful. I not only need to to understand it, I need to remind myself of it everyday.