Alternate Reality

 Last night Steve and I took the kids to the movies.  Steve, Simon and Jude saw "Hop", and Chloe and I saw "Source Code".  Afterwards, when Steve was trying to exit the theater with Simon and Jude, he looked down and realized that Jude had taken off one of his socks and shoes. He bent down in the darkness to try and locate them, looked up and realized that Jude had gone under the rail and escaped down the aisle! He and Simon were trapped in behind everyone else exiting in front of them and couldn't just trample over them to get out and chase Jude.  Luckily, our movie finished first, so Chloe and I were already in the lobby and caught Jude when he came running out of the theater, wild-eyed and laughing maniacally.  Steve and Simon followed shortly after, Steve also looking wild-eyed and scared out of his mind.  He was so furious with Jude that he first had to give him a tongue-lashing before going back in to continue trying to find the shoe.

I continued to let Jude know how bad that was to run away from his daddy and Jude shook his head in agreement, then bowed it with remorse.  The trouble is, I can never tell if he's sorry about what he's done, or just sorry that we are mad at him.  Can he connect the dots between the two things? I really sometimes do not know.

On the way home, I let my mind briefly wander to the dark side, considering the different scanario tonight had Chloe and I not been in the lobby. Where would Jude have run?  What if someone in the lobby had scooped him up and made off with him?  What if, like John Walsh, we were getting a phone call from the police weeks later about having found Jude's body in a river somewher?.  I looked back into the car and saw everyone safely buckled into their seats and imagined how differently the night could have gone with us all in the lobby of the theater giving Jude's description to the police (he was wearing blue sweat pants, a red t-shirt, blond hair, hazel eyes, about 38 inches tall...and missing a shoe and sock on one foot)
I felt panicked for a moment, nauseous.  Then I snapped back into reality. Everything is fine.  Chloe and I were there and he is fine.
Still, after having had the worst imaginable thing happen, it's easy to realize that these things do happen, and they can happen to me.  Any sense of security/ safety/ protection that we might have felt in our younger years is just gone.  I have said it's like living life, always waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I have joked (I have a sick sense of humor) that I was going to cross stitch a sign to hang over our mantle that says in ornate script,

"Any shitty thing can happen at any time."

Wouldn't that be lovely?  What a wonderful reminder for friends and family.

But, it's true.
It can.

The movie "Source Code" was kind of about alternate realities; kind of like "Matrix" or "Inception". Jake Gyllenhaal's character asks another if she thinks there is such a thing as another version of herself living a different life alongside this one: didn't marry and divorce.  Married someone else. Made different choices a the fork in the road.
I think about that. If Chloe and I had lingered in the theater last night to watch credits, things would have gone differently.

The day that Seth died, if any detail of that afternoon were altered, maybe he would still be with us today.

Today is Seth's birthday.  He would have been 13.  It's hard to imagine it, since he was 2 on the last birthday we celebrated with him.  I like to pretend every spring that we are planning his birthday party. I imagine what we might do.  In my alternate reality, I am disappointed each April 9th if the weather is bad because it will spoil our outdoor party plans.  A little crazy, I know.  I admit to some mental illness over our loss of Seth. How could it be any other way?