WORRY

As a Former Journalist, I Write Every Loved One’s Obit in My Head Each Time They Are 5 Minutes Late

And they always run late

Say what you want about little cars, but my son walked out of this crash with two light scratches. I miss this Neon. (Photo by Michelle Teheux)

I spent decades writing and editing news stories about terrible things happening to people, so I can quickly sum up a tragedy to meet any deadline.

Michelle Teheux knew in her gut that something terrible had happened when her husband was 30 seconds late Tuesday. Sure enough, authorities say, he had been killed when he swerved to miss a butterfly and accidentally drove off a bridge.

The butterfly survived.

I write stories like that in my head all the damned time.

It was even worse when my children were teenagers. I cannot tell you how many horrible stories I imagined, and how many times the news stories started writing themselves in my head.

There was a tragic spate of local teen deaths in 2005–2006 so notable they made the and resulted in tighter teen licensing laws in my state. It was traumatic to be working at a daily newspaper at that time.

We generally wrote about a fatal teen accident every couple of years, but suddenly the deaths were unrelenting. One girl who died had been on my daughter’s swim…