Saturday Snapshot and A More Somber Subject

Today, I would like nothing more than to merely post a photo of the leaves turning brilliant colors. I was afraid the  leaves were simply going to fall off without changing, but I was wrong.
Here are a couple of trees near my house. The leaves have turned an orangish red that looks almost pink in some lights.

But my thoughts are on a more somber subject.
This week, I found out one of my college students died. "Passed away" was the wording they used in the email I received.
Elisha (pronounced like the Biblical prophet) was in my class this summer and again this fall. (Two different classes.) He was tall and slim. He loved football and planned to try out for a spot as a running back in the National Football League, even though he didn't make the team in college.
He came to my class after two years at another college. I was surprised that his writing was full of run-on sentences. We sat together that second class and read through his writing. I taught him that he paused naturally where the sentences needed punctuation. We kept working on it throughout the semester.
He finished class early, completing all of the work for the course before the end. And he moved on to the next class in September, which I also taught.
A few weeks ago, I asked him what was going on. "You aren't getting all the work done ahead of time like last semester."
He shook his head and promised to do better.
I didn't know what was going on with Elisha. I didn't understand then that this 20-year-old guy had started hanging out with a new crowd.
I didn't know that until I saw the newspaper story.
The story began by saying Elisha's parents filed a missing person's report when he didn't come home Saturday morning. He always came home. It was not in his nature to stay out all night.
I have a son the same age as Elisha, and he had stayed out all night the weekend before when he came home from college. I texted and called him until he finally responded that he had spent the night at his friend's house.
So immediately, I felt a kinship with Elisha's parents. Here we are trying to raise our sons past this tricky phase of life when they think they're independent but they're still making some very questionable choices.
My son has gotten himself into some trouble, but his choices haden't ended him where Elisha's choices did.
Elisha was with three other guys when two of them went into a store and robbed it. A SWAT team was waiting for them, and two of the guys were killed. Elisha was one of those.
I don't know if Elisha was a robber or if he was in the car. I don't know if he had a gun.
I do know, from the news story, that he had never been in trouble before, only traffic tickets.
Yes, he did make an awful choice, and that choice ended his life.
I just wonder how many times boys make decisions that bring them to the brink of death, that allow them to slip past narrowly.
I want to reassure Elisha's parents, that I believe he was a good kid who made some bad decisions at the end. But when I picture going to the funeral, I'm afraid they might have an open casket, and I keep picturing the slim shoulders of this boy sitting in my classroom.
And then it's only a tiny step to imagine that my own boys are squeaking past bad choices. No, they aren't tempted to rob stores or commit other crimes, but they all make stupid decisions.
I don't want to dismiss what Elisha and his friends did.
I just think 20 year olds don't think very far ahead; they don't see the consequences.

Something Bad Equals Good Karma

Did you ever notice that we have to have something bad happen in our lives before we give credit to good karma?
I realized that myself after I wrote a blog post in August about having good karma. My car key had broken, and the planets aligned to allow me to get the key replaced and get to work on time. What good luck, I thought. I didn't even consider what bad luck that my key broke.
Later that same day, I had another incident of what I considered good karma.
But it was as I was lying on my back on the ground, that I realized: yes, I was very lucky not to have broken my head open, but I was kind of unlucky to be lying on the ground in the first place.
Grace and I decided to try roller blading.
I used to be pretty skilled at roller blading. When Grace and Spencer were little, before Tucker was even born, I'd swoop up and down the streets of our Michigan town while pushing a double stroller with the kids in it. I had promised my husband that if he bought me a double stroller, I'd have the best ass in the neighborhood because I would use it to roller blade everywhere. I probably got close to that goal.
I continued roller blading as our kids grew and as we moved to Columbus, Ohio. Then, about 12 years ago, I was skating around the block with Tucker and Spencer. Grace was probably curled up at home with a book. My husband had traveled to Florida for a work conference. I lost control of my roller blades and hit the curb head on. I heard a pop from my knee and I lay in the grass knowing something was truly wrong with my knee.
The boys, ages 6 and 8, skated over and looked down at me in fear. I could see tears in Spencer's eyes as he felt my pain and wondered how to help.
"Just give me a minute," I told the boys.
Dad was gone so he couldn't come get me. The boys suggested they'd skate home and get the wagon. Then they could pull the wagon with me in it.
The idea of standing up was excruciating. Lowering myself into then climbing out of a wagon seemed beyond my capabilities.
After a few minutes, I had the boys help me stand. I kept my left knee, the injured one, bent and tried to put all my weight on the right one. The boys both held my hands and pulled me slowly along until we reached home.
I found out later that weekend that I had torn my ACL -- a ligament in my knee. A few months later surgery and physical therapy helped make it as a good as new, but I never went back to regular roller blading.
So on that August day that started with a broken car key, I convinced Grace that we should do some roller blading, but I couldn't find my roller blades. I searched through the box with probably six pairs of roller blades. Mine weren't there.
I put on another pair that the kids had worn at some point during their growing up period. They all have bigger feet than I do now. The roller blades fit, but they didn't roll very well.
Grace and I went around the block and it was a lot of work. I decided to try another pair. Oh my gosh, the second I put them on I was rolling out of control. There didn't seem to be a way to stop myself, which is why I ended up falling on the sidewalk near the garage door.
"Whoomp!"
I feel backward, which is lucky for a woman who broke her nose falling forward two years ago.
I landed hard on my butt and the palm of one hand before I fell the rest of the way onto my back.
I just lay there on the ground, assessing any injuries I might have incurred. Everything seemed okay. I'd be bruised, but nothing broken.
I was wearing overall shorts and my phone was in the pocket on the front. When I fell back, the phone tumbled onto my chest. That's when I thought, my running friends would probably appreciate a picture of me lying on my back from my latest fall.
I held the phone up and snapped a picture.
Then I looked at the picture.

I was shocked to discover that the top of my head was only an inch away from the wooden box garden that held our strawberries. If I'd fallen just a second sooner, my head would have hit that wooden wall and my injuries might have been much more serious.
Good karma, I thought immediately. But wait a minute, would I even have thought of my good karma if I hadn't had the bad karma to fall.
I haven't been roller blading lately, but that doesn't mean I'm giving up. I might need some new ones for Christmas, and next time, I'm definitely wearing a helmet. I can't count on good karma for everything.