The young girl walking towards me was staring into her cell phone.

She never saw me coming.

For a split second I thought  – she’s going to run into me.   Should I say something?  Or will she knock me down and embarrass us both.

I flashed back to other times when disaster was heading straight for me.

When my son began abusing drugs, knowing what to say, and when to say it, was always a challenge.

It’s a challenge I often hear parents discuss.

Surely Jacob knew drugs could be a problem.  Maybe we’d never discussed them specifically, but didn’t he know being our son that drugs had no place in our family?

Not in our household.  Not my son.

Looking back, I doubt if a conversation about the dangers of drugs would have made any difference.  Jacob had heard those warnings every year in school. He wasn’t ignorant.

When the time finally came to talk about his problems, he barely said a word. How do you have a “conversation” when only one person is talking?

It took many others talking – counselors and therapists and social workers – before Jacob started to listen.  And it wasn’t until he found others like himself in AA who helped him find a greater voice to heed – something greater than himself.

My talking never mattered.

Nor did it matter with the young woman and her cell phone striding towards me

Just as we were about to collide, she sensed my presence and dodged disaster.

I hadn’t said a word.

The power to avoid tragedy was hers all the time.

Just as it was – and still is – with my son.