Bang

            You know how you sometimes feel your life is moving smoothly along. Yes, you are getting older, slowing down a bit, forgetting a few things, but you are making plans for the rest of the week, the rest of the year, and maybe even the rest of your life. I remember when I was playing drums in a rock and jazz group in college and after, and we would sometimes conclude a song with a “fade-out ending,” where we would just play quieter and quieter until we faded into silence. Not a bad way to go . . ..

 

            But sometimes there’s a Bang! It could be a sudden heart attack, or a fall that leads to a broken hip that means you can’t live in your home any more. And sometimes Life sends you a preview Bang, just to remind you what your plans mean.

 

            Kim and I got two reminder-Bangs last week. First, we were driving home from some medical appointments in Traverse City, noticing the light rain and the dark clouds we were heading for, and happy that we would get home with the storm long gone. I was planning what I would get done that afternoon, but when we pulled into the garage, we noticed water on the floor. We looked up and saw some large holes in the roof, and a branch as thick as my arm penetrating down halfway to the floor. We walked around back and saw that a large high branch had broken off of our neighbor’s tree and crashed into our garage roof. So much for our day’s plans.

 

            Fortunately, it all turned out OK – at least, so far. Our neighbors on the other side called Tyler, who came out late that afternoon to begin repairs and make our roof waterproof, and he spent most of the next day completing the job perfectly. Our lives were not seriously disrupted, except perhaps our relationship with the neighbors whose tree did the damage. (We are waiting to see how insurance handles this.) But it was a Bang! We imagined what it would have been like if a large tree had fallen on our house, and we are looking fearfully at some huge trees next to our house. I am, by nature, a worrier, and I now have plenty to work with. We didn’t actually hear the Bang, but we felt it. And we still do.

 

            The second Bang came while we were driving. We were going just under the speed limit when and oncoming car turned left just in front of us, perhaps running a blinking yellow arrow. I slammed on our brakes and jerked the steering to the left, and we missed the car by inches. My 40 mph and his oncoming 20 mph would and could have been very costly. The day before this our friends Jim and Angie had sent us a photo of their car after it had collided with a deer. Ours would have been worse. They said they are both OK, which I pretty much doubt. I spent the next twenty minutes imagining what I would do if we had rammed onto that car – how our day and our lives would change for the worse. Then another car cut across two lanes directly in front of us, to go to a gas station on our right, and I again had to slam on the brakes. Again, I thought how that might have disrupted our lives – totaled car, of course, and probably serious injury. What if we couldn’t climb stairs, or if I couldn’t drive? What if I started to forget people’s names? Nursing home? Live with our kids? 

 

            These were Bangs that didn’t happen – yet – but Bangs nonetheless. I drive more attentively now, and Kim and I make back-up plans, sometimes beginning, “If we can’t climb the stairs, then . . .,” or “If I die first, then . . ..”

 

            This is my Big Bang Theory - more likely than the fade-out ending.