(references this accident)
Life is a terminal illness. None of us know how we’re going to go, but, if you believe in fate, perhaps it was regrettably her time to go. Skiing into a tree was the way it went, but for society to always be trying to lessen the risk for people will only end us up in isolation bubbles.
The fact of life is that as soon as you’re born, it’s dangerous. Slipping in the tub without those grippy flowers that your grandma has in hers, crossing the street while a driver is inadvertently sneezing, or studying your entire life to be a scientist only to have a space shuttle explode on your maiden voyage – all have happened.
For those who have seen winter sport helmet studies, you understand that the impact of hitting your head on the ground may be absorbed by one, while hitting a tree at a decent speed is far beyond what the helmet can absorb.
Yes, it’s important for us to know and understand the risks we all take as adults, and for adults to take care of the dependents in their care, but when another adult is attempting to take care of another adult and impose their level of safety over another, I disagree.
As beautiful as the idea may be, that one wants to wish safety and well-being over another, to the old lady that doesn’t actually want to cross the street with the boy scout, it’s horror. It’s being forced to do something against one’s will. It’s dictatorship. It’s a lack of freedom. As beautiful as forced safety may be, an adult’s freedom, when not endangering others, is a higher level of freedom.
Of course I feel for this girl’s family. However, their pain has nothing to do with the tree, nor a helmet, nor skiing. It has to do with death and the gaping hole that the loss will leave in their lives. Without pain and death, would this life be as great as it can often be?
