A Matter of Timing

Trey Smith

Tuesday morning my brother walked past JJ's Restaurant at the corner of 48th and Bellevue just west of Kansas City's Plaza district. It is located about 7 or 8 blocks from his abode.

If he had waited to walk past this location about 8 hours later, he might have been severely injured or killed. At approximately 6:00 pm, JJ's Restaurant exploded due to a reported gas leak in the area. One person died in the blast and several were severely injured.

So much of what does or does not happen to us is a matter of timing. In far too many cases, it is nothing more than random timing! An individual stops at a particular location as a spur of the moment decision and, in a manner of seconds, the person dies. An individual has a reservation for a trip by airplane and, through a weird set of circumstances, misses their flight and later learns that the plane crashed and there were no survivors.

We never know which decisions we make may end up with deadly consequences. Sometimes, the most ill-thought out decisions end up saving us from harm. In the scope of our myopic routine existence, there often seems to be no rhyme or reason. All we know is that shit happens and our hope is that the really bad shit doesn't happen to us!