How to use the word �skitter� in a sentence.
10:01 p.m.
As silly as that question sounds, it hearkens back to when the kids were little and they would constantly get mom and dad mixed up, a thing which I actually encouraged since I felt that we should be interchangeable. But his question brought up another scenario in my mind: What if something too terrible to mention happened to Hubby and I had to be both mom and dad? It was very frightening. But what was even stranger was the way in which my thoughts skittered away from such a prospect, completely skirted the possibility, avoided the issue altogether.
It makes me wonder what other things we don�t think about, those things we deny because they are too painful to consider. The loss of a loved one, definitely, ranks right up there. Hundreds of thousands of people dying in a natural disaster is too horrible to contemplate, and yet it has happened and adorns the front pages of the newspapers still, forcing itself on our awareness. Of course the horrific images of passenger planes crashing into office buildings have been burned into our retinas repeatedly. That too was a tragedy too vast to comprehend fueled by an evil that defies understanding. Still, three years later, I get a lump in my throat and my breath comes short when I think of it.
But why is it that when it comes to even contemplating a disaster or a personal loss, our minds skitter away from it? What defence mechanism is engaged that keeps us from dwelling on possibilities? I know that we can and do deal with these things when they happen, but we are unprepared, since we avoid thinking about them before the fact. When my husband and I got our wills made up, it was a very serious, difficult undertaking. Neither one of us wanted to think of the possibility of losing the other, nor of our children becoming orphans. Yet, it is an inevitability, one which we should be ready for. Except that we can�t. The prospect is too horrible.
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