Branches.

Happy Independence Day!

I know. I’m late.

My Thursday started out with a news article from my mom. A girl in Iowa had been killed from a tree branch. She’d been swinging on it or on a swing hanging from it, the article was unclear. The branch broke off and landed on her. This scenario has played out in my tired mom brain more than once. I have an acquaintance who lost her three year old this way many years ago. We have a branch with four swings hanging on it. Another branch, same tree, has one swing on it.

All that to say we headed off to our customary Fourth of July celebrations with friends from church, where we went last year. Where they did this. Charlotte and one other were playing on that same branch. Again. They’ve done this many times in the years this family has lived there.

The branch cracked. Both kids went crashing down. The crack was loud. Stellan was up by the base of the tree and it hit him. Charlotte and the other kid were under the branch. All three were scratched some and slightly freaked out but fine.

Maybe half an hour later, I was standing in the creek watching Charlotte walk through the river when a tree above her lost a large branch and it landed right next to her. It was loud. People came running to see what happened. She was fine. She got splashed.

Totally random. Yet clearly a demonstration that I am not in control. I saw both times happen. And yet.

Charlotte needs to be put in a bubble.