Statistics

I've had a good life. I met the love of my life at 16 and married him just shy of my 20th birthday. I travelled the world by his side for 35 years. During that time we had two wonderful daughters who in turn found their loves and gave us four amazing grandchildren.

We lost loved ones early in our marriage. My husband's father passed unexpectedly in a bicycling accident shortly before my first daughter was born. We lost grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles and a precious brother along the way. In between life, we've had the good fortune of jobs we have loved, friends who have become family and lots and lots of fun.

On September 11, 2001, our world was rocked by terrorism. My husband worked in the Pentagon. I waited six long hours from the time the plane struck to hear he was safe. We were fortunate that day. Others we knew, were not as fortunate. The event changed the world,  but for our immediate family, it also was the first time we brushed up against what it could mean to be on the wrong side of a statistic.

As the next few years unfolded, I started relying on statistics to calm my children's nerves. They had seen their safe world turn into something very different suddenly. Fears were closer to the surface. Statistics had worked in our favor once before, they would again.

When the DC sniper began terrorizing the city, our world turned scary again. My children were locked inside schools each day with armed guards patrolling their roofs. I would recite statistics to myself as I pumped gas and scanned the horizon trying to assure myself I was safe.

When their Dad went to war, I relied on statistics as well. I would calculate the percentages of fatalities to deployed personnel. I would calm my fears for my husband's safety using statistics. That worked well until we lost a soldier in his battalion. Statistics became less comforting in the face of someone we knew and cared for, but I still hung onto the fact that my love was still with me. Statistics were still MY friend.

When my oldest daughter was sixteen, she started having seizures. She was diagnosed with epilepsy. It was the first time, we fell on the wrong side of a statistic. Thirteen years later my youngest daughter was diagnosed with Moyamoya, a rare disease impacting less than 1% of the population. That was when it finally clicked, life is random. Statistics do not protect, they only comfort. 

Please do not use statistics to justify actions or inactions. Behind every statistic is a person - a person who is loved by someone; a person like you; a person like me. Statistics do not protect, they only comfort....until they don't.