As I sat at my desk today at work, contemplating photos of fur seals and sea lions for our website, a young woman was falling to her death across the parking lot. I hadn't expected to be shaken into a deep contemplation of mortality when I came to work today, but as for this young woman, life is unpredictable, and you never know what it will deliver or take away.

Sitting at my desk, I was asked to move my car out of the parking lot because a helicopter needed to land there. I moved the car and watched as assorted fire trucks, ambulances, National Park Service, police, and the Coast Guard descended on the scene. I listened in on the radio correspondence of rescue workers and overheard that there were two victims down the side of the cliff, and the "survivor" was alert. I heard them ask for the time on the radio so they could call the time of death. I watched the helicopter disappear behind the hill, then return to land in the parking lot, where a young man emerged and was led to the picnic tables. A blanket was put around him and he was given some water, as two officials wrote on a pad of paper while he spoke animatedly, gesturing. About ten minutes later, the helicopter returned, and a body bag on a stretcher was unloaded and walked to the ambulance. As I left work for the day, on my way to the post office to mail my tax return, the absurdity of life just hit me. I walked through the parking lot to where I had moved my car, and passed by the young man who had just lost his hiking companion. Police stood by as he took things out of an SUV with a dazed look on his face. He looked up as I passed, but looked right through me.

An hour earlier, this guy was hiking up a trail with a young lady. I'm left only to speculate on their relationship...a first date? Madly in love? What struck me was that he did not know (at least I certainly hope he didn't, lest this turn more sinister) when they pulled up and parked in the beach parking lot that one hour later his life would be forever changed, she would be dead, and he would be clearing out their belongings from the car.

As I drove to the post office, away from this scene, I was triggered into a spiraling internal dialogue. I was deeply disturbed, slightly nauseated. Later, I scanned the stories on the news websites for the one outside my office, and saw that a woman was also killed in San Francisco today when a tree fell on her while she was getting her dog out of the car at a park. A man in Mill Valley was also killed when a wave washed him overboard during a shark diving trip in South Africa. We don't know at what point the period at the end of our life will come. We can only create right now. This is it. There are no do-overs or practice games. Time doesn't wait for fear and doubt. I need to get to doing the things I want to do now. Remind me when humdrum life lulls me.

 

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