c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is the publisher of RNS and the mother of two sons.)

UNDATED _ Some days I simply take a different route home from work in order to avoid the site. Some days I breeze through the intersection without a pause.

But at least once a week I am forced to confront it. The light turns red and there I am, sitting next to a shrine surrounding a light pole.

A flower holder is tied to the post with fraying string. A whiskey barrel grows fresh flowers in the summer and contains wilted and drying ones in the winter. Sometimes notes or fresh flowers appear, and then I wonder if this commemorates what should have been a birthday or some other happy occasion.

The street corner is a memorial to a 17-year-old boy who died on the spot two summers ago.

He was stopped at the light, driving home from a summer job, when a speeding dump truck hit another car and then his, turning over with its load on the unsuspecting young passenger.

I read every detail of the tragic account when it happened. He was a great student, a terrific kid. He was doing nothing wrong when he was killed on a beautiful summer day just blocks from home.

I imagine that he had the radio on, listening to a favorite song, planning his summer evening. I hope he didn’t even see the truck coming.

I wonder how his mother goes on living.

My own son will be 17 next summer. He has his driver’s license now and is a careful, disciplined driver. But that’s not enough. Driving a car has opened up another universe of dangers and fears.

Every day he drives the car I worry. I know he doesn’t speed. His friends call him”Grandpa”because he so faithfully observes the speed limit. He takes every sign literally and has memorized every law. He is easygoing and patient, not inclined to honk or lose his temper.

I try to teach him to drive defensively, to look out for erratic drivers, to observe signs of drunkenness. I have told him to get out of the way of speeders and allow anxious drivers to pass him easily.

I have done everything humanly possible, but I cannot keep him safe. This is the most horrifying truth of motherhood.

When I stop near that shrine I think of the boy, but I think mostly of his mother. Does she still cry herself to sleep every night or has she exhausted a lifetime supply of tears? Does she wish she hadn’t told her son to hurry home that day or wonder why she hadn’t driven him herself?

Does she go on for her other children or was he her only child?

I pray for her, even though I have no idea who she is. I pray she has somehow found some peace. I pray she does not awaken every morning reliving that horrible day.

And I pray that I can trust God a little more with my own children.

In the aftermath of the Columbine shootings, I worry every morning as I pack them off to school. After last week, I even worry when they go to church.

My theology falls apart when applied to my children. I pray for the strength to trust, but my mother-love is too selfish.”Please, God, not my children”is the best I can do.

Misty Bernall, the mother of one of the girls who died in the Columbine shooting, wrote a book,”She Said Yes.”It sat on my desk for days as I avoided it, just as I hesitate to confront that street corner.

But once I finally began the book, I was surprised. She didn’t spend much time reliving the day itself, the”what-ifs”I imagined would punctuate the pages. Instead she says,”You can’t live in fear. But you have to be ready to let them go at any time.” Her message is that we need to love our kids as if it were their last day on Earth. Her regrets are not so much about that last tragic day, but about the other times with her daughter, Cassie. Her wishes are that she’d listened more carefully, lingered a little longer, allowed her daughter to”follow her heart”instead of insisting she be practical.

When I stopped at that same corner this morning, I saw some fresh flowers. In the past they would have stabbed my heart. But today for some reason I felt signs of hope. Perhaps they had been left by that boy’s mother as a message to other parents.

Maybe they are a reminder that each day we have with our children is precious and every moment we spend worrying robs us of joy.

DEA END RNS