Someone's worst nightmare

Dead in a ditch on the side of the road.

That's the fate my father's overactive imagination always conjured for us when he realized we were even a few minutes late or not exactly where we said we'd be. He's a worrier by nature and by genetics--his mother was the queen of unfounded, exaggerated dread—someone who cannot help but see disaster around every corner. Given that he was equally concerned whether we were crossing the street or crossing the country, his penchant for worst-case-scenarios just became part of the background noise of our lives.

It's okay, Dad; we'll be fine.

And, by chance or by fate or by the power of his prayers, we have been fine. Only once have I ended up in a ditch, along with, my pride compels me to point out, every other car that was headed South to Chicago on that snow-covered stretch of I-43. We were unhurt, and, to our extreme relief, we had enough cash to get the miraculously unscathed rental car towed back onto the road. Nonetheless, if my father ever heard the story of that trip to Midway, I’m sure the ditches were carefully edited out. Better to insist his fears were irrational that to provide proof that they were not.

Even now that censoring habit is so ingrained that I hesitated a little before forwarding my mother the news story that recounted what I saw on the way into work this morning: a dead body in a ditch on the side of the road. There’s no drama to my early morning tale, only the slowly dawning realization of why lights were flashing, and cops were tramping through the median grass, and dark shoes were peeking out from under a plastic tarp. A 22 year old man, according to the paper, somehow dead. In a ditch. By the side of the road.