Sad, morbid and hopeless. Read at your own risk.

Last week I went to see My Sister's Keeper. Jodi Picoult is one of my favourite authors, so I was anxious to see how the book translated to film. For those who haven't read it, the story follows a pair of sisters - the older one who has leukemia, and the younger one who was a test tube baby, conceived to provide donor marrow to her sister. She is now 11 and files a lawsuit seeking medical emancipation from her parents, just when her sister needs another transplant.

The older sister in the movie was played by an actress I have never seen or heard of before, Sofia Vassilieva. There is a scene in the movie where she gets dressed up to go to a formal dance with her boyfriend, also a cancer patient, and she floats down the staircase wearing this gorgeous dress with a full head of red hair (thanks to a wig). By this point she is pretty sick and you are getting the impression that things are not going to end well.

The entire movie is one big tear-jerker, the kind where with every gap in the audio you can hear snivelling taking place in the theatre around you as people are trying to compose themselves. And though this scene wasn't likely meant to be particularly sad or sob-worthy, it sent me over the edge (again). You guessed it - there I was, picturing Mallory an estimated 15 years from now. Though hopefully without the tubes sticking out of her chest.

When I sit back and compare myself to a lot of people I know, I have led a pretty charmed life. My family is healthy, we still have our parents, we have never known the tragedy of a big flood or fire or earthquake or car accident, no addictions (so long as Diet Pepsi doesn't count), no bitter divorces, no children falling into a pool and drowning, and on and on it goes. And the more years that go by like this, with everyone happy and healthy for the most part, the more certain I am that the other shoe is going to drop and when it does, it's going to fall in a big, big way.

Now that I have kids, of course, my worries are more about them than they are about me. I worry more than the usual amount, I think, that my kids are not going to survive into adulthood. At least, I worry more than someone who has not yet been given a reason to worry should. I worry that they are going to be the ones hit by a freak stroke of lightning or contract fatal meningitis or do something incredibly stupid when they are 16 that does not end luckily and happily, as it always did for my friends and me.

There is still the chance that something could happen to Chad or I, and in our mid-thirties, that would still be considered dying a young and tragic death, but I am more convinced, or at least more worried, that it will be the kids. Who's to say that Mallory won't be diagnosed with leukemia when she is four or five? What about this swine flu business that is going to decimate the population in a few short months? - my employer is providing Tamiflu to all employees, but if there's a real epidemic and a shortage of medication, my children might not be afforded the same privilege. And while death from the flu is pretty rare in most cases... statistically speaking... I feel like one of these days, I am going to be left without a chair when the music stops.

So there I was, sobbing, alternately picturing Mallory going to her prom/formal/whatever and just hoping that she is still here in fifteen years and able to go to her prom/formal/whatever, trying not to get sucked into a big impending sense of doom. It was hard to do, especially when sitting in a theatre watching a pretty depressing film. I don't really have anywhere to go with this post... no point to make or conclusion to come to. I guess this is what it's like to be a parent: one big worry-fest. It's not the part of the job that I like the most. That would have to go to Christmas morning.