That was a close call. You missed the train. Damn. Um. No… you were very lucky to have missed that Amtrak train. I can not help but imagine the person or the people who who missed that train and the deadly and horrible derailment…

Just by a minute, or five or an hour. Imagine them in DC, Baltimore, or 30th Street Station; they are pissed off, frustrated and annoyed. They are going to be late getting home. They won’t see their kids before they go to bed or they will miss birthday dinner with their spouse (how annoyed would the spouse be to get that text…)

I have to say that I believe in karma, and by being somewhere else last night or this afternoon or that fateful day, you lived and escaped an accident or a terrible ordeal.

One of my mom’s nurses was not in NYC on 9/11/01. She was not doing random drug testing on Port Authority employees because her child got sick that morning and she had to stay home from school. No one was really “expecting her” (it was random testing) in the World Trade Center that day, it was okay to get there tomorrow. It was more than OK…she lived when so many others didn’t. It wasn’t her time.

For those people who missed that train yesterday evening, aren’t they the lucky ones? I don’t even want to think about being someone who was actually on the train, it could have been me or a co-worker or a friend… I take Amtrak to travel, we fly, we drive a car, we walk across the street. It can happen anywhere, at any time. “When you are meant to go, you go…“someone said to me this weekend. Oh, how right he is.

So, yes, I am very sad today. I have an enormous amount of empathy for those who were on-time, ready and waiting when that train came into their station. I wish, how I wish, that they were home tonight with their families, their spouse, their friends – enjoying a simple evening like so many of us did tonight. If it was a close call or even if it wasn’t; just remember that today is the only day you have…every single day. Make the most of it. You just never know what will happen. Go out and start that business, marry the one you love, have the baby you don’t think you are ready to have…say what you want to say. Give yourself the only gift you truly can give to yourself and live your life like you want to live it…you won’t have any regrets.

~ Dawn aka Hat Girl