on the fragility of life & how this is my favorite photo.

a man fell out of the window one story above us today. it was either a freak accident or a very, very poor lapse in judgment, or a little bit of both. at this point, i still don't quite know.

today ayley tweeted about how movies that make you feel fragile are the best kind of movies. i share her sentiment, they help to propel me in the direction of more conscious living. after today, however, i won't need to watch another one of those movies for quite some time.

where do i begin? last night we left our friend's house earlier than we would have liked because jared was feeling like his inner organs were failing (in more or less words than that). by this morning it sounded like he either had the flu or some form of food poisoning (and all the christmas junk i'm sure didn't help!). while getting ready for church, ingrid michaelson's "breakable" came on, which always make me think about the fragility of life to the point where i get the heebie jeebies and i have to think about something else.

i hate to leave a sick person home alone, but i went to sacrament meeting because he was supposed to say the opening prayer, so i went in his place. our chapel is just across the street from our apartment building, so it was a thirty second walk home after the meeting. as i was walking up the stairs watching each step to avoid an icy slip, i was startled by jared's voice.

"kelli!"

i looked up to see him at the top of the stairs barefoot, still in his sweats, his face pale and his eyes so wide i thought he may have just seen a ghost.

"did you get my text? i'm freaking out."

i darted up the stairs and yanked out my phone. the text read: something crazy just happened. once we were inside our apartment jared launched into the story.

"a guy fell out of the window right above our apartment. i was just sitting here and i heard a huge crash. over in that corner."

he was waving his arm in the direction of the window. i noticed the tv was still paused. everything was fresh. something crazy really had just happened. just happened. jared's eyes staring into the distance as he spoke expressed almost more than his words.

"i ran to the window and the guy was lying on the concrete screaming for help. my phone was dead and i couldn't get it to charge. i panicked but ran to get my shoes. by the time i found my shoes people in the courtyard had already gotten to him. the paramedics arrived within five minutes and took him to the hospital. they literally just left. you didn't hear the sirens?"

i didn't hear anything. but sirens are going so often in our area i really just tune them out. we have a handful of friends and acquaintances who live in this building and immediately my mind was racing. we called a few people and discovered that it wasn't anyone we knew.

we paced and hyperventilated and hugged and took turns passing back and forth disturbed and concerned looks but no words. this went on for probably an hour. we went outside to assess the situation and realized he had fallen out of the hallway window. it was freaking us out so we went up and shut the window. he had taken off his jacket just before it happened and it was still sitting there on the staircase, like it had a conscience, the way shoes and clothes look when they were literally just peeled off and left there pending, waiting to be put right back on, waiting for someone to put them away, give them a home, tell them what to do.

so we shut the window, checked the jacket for an ID or anything, but there was nothing, and decided to just leave it there. we went back into our apartment and decided it was time to pray. it helped. we cleaned our apartment and lit some candles and turned on our soft lamps and cooked dinner and tried to make life feel like normal again. we turned on a sitcom and just tried to distract ourselves from the fact that a few hours ago a guy who lives in our building almost died because he fell out of the window ten feet above our heads.

we don't have cable at our apartment, just netflix, so we didn't have any way of catching the news. my brother called around 9pm because he saw our apartment on tv. he let us know from what he saw that the guy reported to the paramedics he was locked out of his apartment and was trying to break in by climbing through the window. i hung up, turned to jared and said, "don't you ever make a physical risk and put yourself in harm's way to save money on a locksmith. never. never ever." he agreed. we had this exact conversation probably five more times during the next couple hours before bed.

jared padded off to bed about an hour ago and i stayed up writing this. as i'm sitting here typing, i can see the last few flickers of the candle on our coffee table are all that remain. a few hours ago, there was a tall candlestick, and now, a quarter of an inch. this morning, that guy didn't have thousands of dollars of medical bills, or who knows what other health complications, and at the very most, he had his life. i've been praying all day that guy didn't lose his life over a silly misstep.

today, i have my healthy, loving, perfect husband. today, i have a healthy, happy body. today, i have a brain that works and a heart that loves. today, i have a good job and a beautiful, bright future. today, i have everything. i have everything a person could ever need. i have it all. tomorrow, any one of those could be gone. any one of those could be taken from me and it would be entirely out of my hands. i never know what might be there one day and gone the next.

life is fragile. it is soo fragile. our human bodies are breakable. we are made of squishy flesh that rips and tears and snappy bones that break and protrude. our relationships, even more fragile than our bodies. our connections to heaven, likely even more so. it is indispensable that each of us treasure, cherish, deeply value each moment we have, and each person we have the pleasure of knowing and loving.

because tomorrow it could all be gone.

UPDATE 1/1/14: he is alive and isn't paralyzed. he is our friend's roommate and he was trying to break into his apartment by climbing through the window and jumping to the balcony. he shattered many bones in his body and will take a few months to recover, but should make a full recovery.