Run!

One of the characteristics that separate human beings from other animals is the ability to reason. As humans we should be able to witness a situation, construct a possible outcome and then make a rational decision based upon our deductions. My kids have yet to develop this ability.

My wife is a wonderful mother. She’s a wonderful mother in the way that a volcano is a wonderful geological occurrence. The majestic volcano, in its dormant state, is a mighty mountain with lush vegetation ascending and beautifully capped with snow. Its foot can be the border of a pristine valley and village whose inhabitants look to their mountain as a mother, sitting watch, always there. Their Mother Mountain provides shade from the sun, timber, minerals and a sort of stability, but, by God, when that volcano erupts you better run like hell lest her flaming lava boils the skin right off your bones.

When any one of The Trio is in trouble with their mother then one or both of the others will come running from across the house to see why and to ask far too many questions about the situation – the flaming, molten situation. You don’t run into the fire! Did the Pompeians run up Vesuvius and peer into the hole at the top to see what could possibly be causing all of the rumbling and ash and heat? No. They ran and they cowered like rational human beings. But my kids seem to have missed the gene that carries survival instincts. You don’t swat a hornet’s nest, you don’t hike up the erupting volcano, and you don’t ask Momma why she’s mad.