On Saturday we went up to my parents new place to put the shingles on the back side of the house. After a couple of hours of working, mom went to get us something to eat for lunch. She hadn’t been gone but just a few minutes when my dad’s phone rang w/ her ringtone. Before even answering it, I think we all knew that something had happened.
As she was going around a slight curve, a man backed out into the road without even being able to see if there was any oncoming traffic, and she nailed him. Luckily she was wearing her seat belt and the airbag helped soften the impact a bit. She’s still sore from where the seat belt grabbed her, but thankfully had no serious injuries. After an hour or so, the state trooper came to work the accident. He heard both sides and said that the truck was at fault because it is never okay to back into a main through-way.
Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.
— , The Painted Drum : A Novel
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