What If?

Dad helps Michael learn to walk

     What if it wasn't a Wednesday and the neighborhood kid who was supposed to walk Michael home from the bus didn't stay after school for CCD classes?
     What if my anemic mother had dragged me at four-years-old and my three-year-old brother down to meet him at the bus stop that day?
     What if the pregnant bus driver had stopped at the regular bus stop right next to to the crossing guard instead of letting him off across the street?
     What if the impatient driver had not zoomed around the bus and hit my six-year-old brother?
     If just one of those circumstances had changed, then perhaps my brother would have a different life today.  
     Perhaps he wouldn't have flown up into the air and landed on his head on the unforgiving pavement.  Perhaps he wouldn't have been in a coma for four days and almost died.  Perhaps he wouldn't have been taunted by Catholic school officials for his parents filing a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Chicago to pay for his medical bills.  
     Perhaps he wouldn't have had those blackouts when he was 12 or developed schizophrenia at 19.  Perhaps he wouldn't have had that grand mal seizure and brain tumor years ago and almost died.  Perhaps he wouldn't be in the hospital right now recovering from yet another surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain.
     Maybe if he hadn't become mentally ill, my younger brother and sister wouldn't have turned to drugs and alcohol themselves, developing their own mental illnesses, and ending their lives way too soon.  Maybe Michael would have been able to complete his accounting program at DePaul University and become a CPA.  Maybe he would have continued playing Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance" on the piano or joined a rock band.  Maybe he would have gotten married and had children.  Maybe I wouldn't have to visit my family in a hospital or a nursing home or a cemetery.
     Who knows what could have been?  Right after my brother's accident, they enacted legislation requiring drivers to wait for stopped school buses.  What if they had passed this law sooner?  We'll never know.