Death is a natural part of life.

Except it’s not. Death, by definition, is the antithesis of life. It may be natural and universal, but once you’re dead, any direct relationship you had with the living ends with it. The following is death advice for teenagers – the ones who will never read it:

Want to know why parents worry so much? We understand our mortality, and we want to spare you from that evil truth – that you’re also going to die – as long as we can.

On the one hand, we hate hiding your demise from you because it causes you to do stupid things. If death isn’t one possible end result, what could go wrong?

On the other hand, we love your ignorance because mortality is a cloud hanging over adult heads. It’s the backdrop for our fears that a mole is cancerous, a terrorist shooting could actually happen in one of our elementary schools, or a piece of airplane ice could drop from the sky.

We live vicariously through our children whether we admit it or not, and we can taste (and remember) that belief of immortality, along with its sister lie, “I’ll never grow old, and my body will always be beautiful.”

As parents, we take it upon ourselves to protect your naivety, to give you the best of both worlds. We do that by worrying for you as we fight to keep you ignorantly safe. Each time a child walks out the door, visions of wrong-way drivers, drunken friends and airplane ice fill our minds. How, we wonder, can we protect them from possible death while not telling them what could happen?

We can’t, of course, and trying isn’t the same as achieving. Every time you walk out the door to do truly crazy stuff, we remember what we did back in the day. Most adults have a story from their teenage years that ends with: “My God, I could have died.” This story is a homespun memory for us, a crazy tale about the good old days that we joke about over that second beer. It turns from homespun tale to horror story, however, the first time a child asks to borrow the car and spend time alone in the world.

As we place those keys in excited young palms, we think, “What’s the worst that could happen?” We then jump to the worst-case scenario – the most dangerous thing we ever stupidly did. (This one’s for you, Pam.)

The personal confession
Here’s my go-to fear that popped into my brain over and over again as my kids aged:

In Mt. Holly, Pennsylvania, Ridge Road cuts almost vertically up the side of South Mountain, its stone-and-ruts dirt path carving an uneven trail to Hammonds Rock and on to Pine Grove. Built by the WPA as a way to put people to work during the Great Depression, it’s a seldom-used glorified trail with no apparent purpose. At many points, the mountain rises on one side and a precipitous drop-off leads to certain death on the other.

Ridge Road, to my teenage mind, was somehow the ideal place to put an unlicensed, underage drunk driver behind the wheel, so I could ride on the roof, stomach down, one arm linked to a similarly stupid roof-rider, as our unlinked arms clutched the open car window. Stomach-to-metal and back-to-the-sky, it felt like flying. I was Superman for a few perilous moments.

We could have died.

Thirty years later, my kids never left the house for parts unknown that I didn’t think about Ridge Road and my time as Superman. I’m a fairly levelheaded guy who plays by the rules – as are my children – but I flirted with death back in the stupid days. I had no reason to think my kids wouldn’t do the same.

And that, children, is why parents worry.

And, God help me, that’s why I’d love to roof-ride Ridge Road one more time before I die.

© 2015 SmithTakes.com