I was walking.
I am such a caricature of myself: the doctor’s wife, in
my yoga clothes, with my yoga mat slung behind me, in flip flops, clutching a
latte … but I digress.
There was a lot of construction. On one side of the
street, there was a fenced-off lot with a backhoe working and on the other
side, a big truck was slowly backing into a driveway.
Since the sidewalk along the fence wasn’t closed, I was
walking there.
The fence was about 8 feet tall. The heap of rubble
behind it was much taller. It had been a brick building that morning. And it
was shaking. The backhoe, which I couldn’t see, was working behind it.
It began to occur to me that, perhaps, I shouldn’t be there.
The construction worker directing the truck saw me and
waved me to the other side of the street. “Just in case,” he said.
Of course, he was right.
(Also, that sidewalk should have been blocked off, hello.)
After I had walked on, I turned. As I watched, that pile
of bricks tumbled over, flattening the fence and spilling all over the
sidewalk.
Whew, a close call.
We all have them and have more of them, the older we get.
Once you become a certain age, it seems, doctors are
always finding things that could be terrible. I continue
to have doctors monitor me for possibly horrific things. In fact, I just got
another all-clear after a week of worry.
Even with all these all-clears (thank God), I am left
with residual fear. What about next time?
Because something will eventually get you, right?
How are we supposed to deal with that?
Yet, the bricks didn’t bother me … I am going to buy that
construction worker a coffee, though.
