Rainy Days

Oh those rainy days. They are so welcomed at times. At other times, we find them to be a huge bother. Sitting blissfully at home, reading a genre I fondly refer to as Literary Potato Chips, I do not think of those fighting rush hour traffic, driving wildly down the road, racing to a predetermined destination, or creeping along in hopes of avoiding an accident. Such was the setting when the pone call came.

"Brenda, this is Bruce," the handsome, authoritative voice responded to my drowsy, "Hello." Why does the phone ring when I've crawled deep into the inner workings of a novel, one that takes me to emotional places I dare not speak of.

"I have bad news," he continued as I sprang to life, every never alive, not knowing what to expect. He's my neighbor. He's my boss. But, he has never been the barer of bad news. Surely it couldn't be Michele. I would have been call directly, not sent the message through Bruce. My extended family? Same think - I would have been called, not Bruce. "There's been a terrible accident," I heard the now distant sounding voice say. Have you ever noticed how tim stands still and life goes into slow motion when bad news arrives? "Our beloved friend, Mike McKinney is dead. Killed in a car crash, along with his daughter. His wife and other daughter are in critical condition."

Wait. Stop a minute. Rewind. I just had a meeting with my mentor two days ago. This can't be happening. He is one of the top three reasons I selected OSU to restart my career after completing my Ph.D. Surely this is a joke of some kind. But Bruce doesn't have a sens of humor this evil.