Miner Pain

My heart is breaking about these 6 coal miners trapped. Now 3 rescue workers have died trying to save/recover them. I don't know if they could possibly still be alive now. It's been over a week hasn't it?

When I first heard about it, that they were stuck, I felt so horrible inside. I was sitting at the dinner table with Steve and said, "How do we sit here and eat our dinner and play with our baby and there are people trapped - possibly alive - at the bottom of a mine?" We just couldn't reconcile that. These men were conceivably writing notes to their loved ones on scratches of paper and I'm sitting in my sunroom playing with my dogs. Something about that just seems so twisted. I know there isn't one single thing I could possibly do to help the situation - it's not like I know these people even, but at some point - we're all connected as humans. (Not to get all Circle of Life or anything) but it's true! I hurt so badly for these women whose children die in car accidents or are kidnapped from their homes. But there's just something odd - something spooky I guess about thinking that these men may be alive - in a tiny space with limited air - and I'm going about my merry way. It makes me wonder:

Did they kiss their wives goodbye that morning? Or were they in a fight about something silly - as most marital fights are - so they stubbornly gave each other the cold shoulder that morning. A wife now laden with guilt. My husband kisses my forehead every morning when he leaves for work. I'm still half asleep - but I'm awake enough to feel it and smile. Though my husband isn't in a high-risk job, anything can happen to anyone at anytime. It's time for the pettiness to stop. It's time to savour those moments biking with my family - laughing and wrestling on the floor. One time, after the baby was born my husband and I were re-folding all of the socks in his drawer (I don't know why) and he threw one at me - like a snowball. We spent the next 10 minutes on opposite sides of the bed - popping up like Wack- a Moles throwing rolled socks at each other - laughing so hard we almost cried. These are memories I cherish and will be my companion in my old age. These are the memories that these men think (or thought) of as they lay trapped - not their 401(k)s or the ding their wife put in the family car.

"That's what it was like to be alive, to spend and waste time as if we had a million years."