Go hug your kids. Do it now.

If they're asleep already (and Dear God, they ought to be!  It's 10:00 PM on a school night!), then kiss their little angelic brows and settle the blanket more firmly around their shoulders.

I WAS going to post about this holiday weekend / mini-family-vacation, including a trip to Michigan's Adventure amusement park. 

Or else I WAS going to post about Sarah Palin, and all like that. 

But then when we got back home a few hours ago, I had a terrible, awful, horrible, tragic message on my answering machine.

So none of that seems to matter right now. 

A kid I know is dead. 

A kid almost exactly Eldest Son's age, a kid whose home we've visited, whose birthday party we've attended, a kid who would have been entering second grade tomorrow in our same school district (although not in Eldest Son's own elementary school; the other one), is dead.

A kid whose mom kept all us other moms in Moms' Bible Study in stitches with her bubbly personality and goofball sense of humor -- her kid is dead.

I am still in a state of shock, but obviously nothing like what that family is going through. 

They were all in their family minivan on Saturday about noon, when they were rear-ended at a four-way stop.  No teen drivers involved; no sign of alcohol.  According to the newspaper report, everybody else got away with only minor injuries.  The place where it happened is right next to the Dairy Queen and probably not even a mile from the family's home; they must literally go through that intersection at least five times a day -- ordinarily.  Now I think I would go miles out of my way to avoid it, if I were in their shoes.

He was a twin, an identical twin, whose name was always attached to his brother's name, a single entity, "Luke'N'Aaron."  "The twins this" and "Luke'N'Aaron that".  He was one of four brothers, all boys in that family. 

Now there are only three; now Aaron will forever be singular.  Never again a plural. 

So now my heart goes out to them; my prayers go out to cover them. 

But, it seems so little.  It seems so useless. 

I don't know what to do or say; I don't want to intrude on their grief, and yet, I want to do something. 

So go hug your children.  Kiss your spouse.  Quick, arrange to see those old friends you've been meaning to get together with but somehow always end up saying "maybe next weekend." 

Because you never know.  You just never know. 

You never know when it might be the last time you can.