Our little neighbor boy, who’s eight, was hit by a car this evening while he was riding his bike on our street. The car was moving slowly, and he was wearing a helmet, so he came away with only minor injuries, but still, how terrifying.

Lydia saw the ambulance and the paramedics when she was on her way home from a friend’s house and she came inside pretty shaken up. The boy is the younger brother of a girl in her class (and the older brother of a boy at Petra’s pre-school), and I think she could pretty easily imagine it being Tage in that situation. I know my own heart was in my throat when she told me what she had seen.

She did tell me that he was awake–although not talking and looking “very serious”–when she went past, so I was able to reassure her that that was a good sign. Our local newspaper’s website reports things like this fairly quickly, so we could check and see pretty much right away what had happened and how he was doing. It was a relief to be able to tell her before she went to bed that he was okay. I’m sure we’ll have a more detailed report tomorrow, but for now it’s enough to know that the worst didn’t happen.

*When I was typing this, I couldn’t help being struck by how many “worst nightmares” there are when your kids are involved. Truly, it doesn’t bear even thinking about.