It’s been almost a week now and I still keep thinking of the Fran Crippen story. The 26-year-old swimmer died unexpectedly in an open-water race in the Unite Arabic Emirates. The Olympic hopeful was physically at his prime, handsome, vital and strong, and yet–for reasons still unknown–he is gone.
As a mother, an aunt, and a former swimmer, my thoughts return again and again to his family. He was from Pennsylvannia, my neighboring state. Fran Crippen was a hometown star, who shined brightly for to brief a time.
As a parent, I know first hand that there are no guarentees in life. “What is supposed to be” and what happens are two totally different things. And we are not in control, although many of us like to think we are.
As the writer John Gregory Dunneso eloquently wrote in his essay about his daughter Quintanna: ”All parents realize, or should realize, that children are not possessions, but are only lent to us, angel boarders, as it were.”
I have hugged my children more this week and taken the time to stop what I am doing, look into their eyes, and listen as they speak to me. We never know what the future holds for us, but we have right now.
So when things get stressful, as they often do with life as a single parent, I remember how lucky I am to have my angel boarders with me. This is, of course, easier said than done when work demands combine with kid demands, and attitude and schedules and homework. Yet, when the tension starts to take over I stop. I refocus and try to take set backs in stride. Together my sons and I try to find a little bit of beauty in each day. A smile, the sky, a good race time. Beauty in the moment. Beauty all around, if we choose to see it.
Fran Crippen was a son. And brother. And friend. A part of the US swimming community.
A beautiful life cut to short.
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Hi lisa,
What a great message. It was perfect as I am working with parents in that scary time of infantcy this week and missing my own children. It really is all perfect and in fact – God's business.