One Monday Changed Everything

She was on her way to work A sixty-minute drive she made every day It was a rainy day, drizzly, a Monday Her car flipped in every conceivable way Her children were at school not knowing That their lives were being turned upside down The five-year-old was coloring and laughing. The six-teen-year-old was with friends, hanging around. The first responders knew they had a Mom, From the coloring pages in the back seat, She was non-responsive, already gone. They tucked the sheet over her body, nice and neat. There was a hushed silence for the loss of life. Some said prayers, some cried tears for the unknown mom, For somebody’s mother, somebody’s wife, A young woman who was gone too early in years. All of us in shock, no one felt exactly like another, As we watched twenty-four sixteen-year-old girls Attend a funeral for one of their friend’s mother And we all saw a small motherless five-year-old boy. It was one of the saddest funerals I have ever attended. Everyone seemed to be in shock, consumed by grief. Taught to all by an ordinary Monday with a bit of rain, Live every day your best living, because life can be brief.