Celebrating Solstice

Yesterday was the worst day of my life. It is every year. June 21st. Summer Solstice. The date that has terrified generations of my family. It is a day of almost eternal sunshine, but to us it is the day of tragic accidents, family deaths, and all manner of disasters.

I used to try and stay in bed for the day. I’d cancel all appointments and call in sick to work. How much can really happen if you stay in bed? Then I read a study that said most accidents happen within 5 miles of your home. I’m not sure if it meant only car accidents or all accidents, but I’m not taking any chances. On June 20th I pack a bag of emergency gear, first aid kits, emergency rations, changes of clothes, and the like. I gather the family pets and then I get at least 5 miles away from home and I wait. Twenty-four tragedy filled hours stretch before me. I pass the time like a convict looking for parole. Minute by minute. Hour by hour. I can’t concentrate. I jump at everything. Twenty-four hours stretch before me and they are the most cursed time in my family.

You don’t understand. It’s okay. Most people don’t. It’s a family curse, or a blessing, depending on who you ask. Most people think family curses went out with the Middle Ages or can be banished with the proper application of science and statistics. I used to think that way, too.

I thought about building a safe room in the house and living in there for 24 hours. Then I thought about all the things that can go wrong with a safe room and how I’d be trapped. I started studying statistics to determine the actuarials of specific events. It didn’t help. The probability of all these events converging into one twenty-four hour anniversary is so astronomically rare that no amount of math or science is going to change the fact that the Solstice comes.

There was the Solstice I broke my arm, and the year when my sister fell out of a tree she was climbing and got 150 stitches in her skull, she was 5 years old. There was the Solstice my father’s foot got crushed in a machine at work, and the year my grandmother’s hand got caught in a door jam, she lost a finger.

There were the Solstices my sister got struck by lightning, she’s been hit 3 times, and the years my brother’s car died in the exact same spot every year. He had different cars each time. There was the Solstice I got divorced. The court doesn’t grant continuances based on generational family curses.

There was the Solstice my mother got the speeding ticket costing two week’s pay, and the year I was writing my thesis when the computer crashed taking all the backup disks with it. I blamed it on solar flare activity and a wireless connection, but I KNEW.

Then there are the hardest years. Those are the years when pets die, and the years we bury family members.

There was the Solstice we buried my great-grandfather, and the year we buried his wife. The Solstice that my favorite dog was killed by a car, and the year my brother’s cat was shot by a hunter. Yeah, we thought hunting was illegal in mid-summer, too.

These are the hardest years, but they are not the worst years. The worst years are those rare years when nothing happens on the Solstice. All the preparation, the anxiety, the waiting for something that never comes. These are the years that are the most frightening. At least when misfortune occurs on schedule we can breathe a sigh of relief. It has happened. Those of us who remain can move on. We can complete the cycle of fear with the expected cycle of grief.

But those years when nothing comes are the problem ones. There are 364 other days in the year. On the years when nothing happens on Solstice we have to think about something worse: things that happen off schedule.

Three-hundred sixty-four days of waking up knowing that anything could happen at any time. Unscheduled. That is truly terrifying. This is what keeps me awake at night.

Yesterday was the worst day of my life. Nothing happened.