We all like to believe that there are things we can do to insulate ourselves from tragedy, to make ourselves bullet-proof, to build impervious walls against the dark forces.

We are only fooling ourselves.

On Saturday, June 2, 2012, my youngest daughter and a cadre of her high school friends marched across the stage and graduated to the next chapters of their lives. One of my daughter’s friends, Halie Moody, was part of that group.  Halie has often been in our home. We have watched her grow from an elementary school student with the nickname “Sunshine” into a young lady.  She lost her dad to cancer when she was in about the fourth grade, and her mom and grandmother have shared her raising. She finished high up in the class of 2012.

Halie turned eighteen Friday June 8th and celebrated that rite of passage with a dinner party at The Texas Roadhouse, a steakhouse in Longview, Texas.  Afterwards, she went with her friends and got her first tattoo. When I asked my daughter about it, she said her mom was fine with it, but that Halie might have to hide it from her grandmom.

Saturday  morning June 9th, my daughter and I left for our annual father-daughter trip.  Our destination was Seagrove Beach, Florida.  We were planning to assess our options when we got there, and maybe make some day trips.

Just north of Mobile, Alabama, the call came, the call no one ever hopes to receive.

The word was that Halie was in the hospital. She had been a passenger in a car her mother was driving. There had been a crash.

The other driver was dead.

A helicopter had transported Halie to a regional trauma unit.

We awaited word from my wife who had rushed to the hospital.

The word was not good.

My daughter had only one thought: How can she get home?

We Googled flights out of Mobile, Pensacola, Fort Walton, Panama City.  There were none.

Just east of Mobile Bay, we turned around and headed home.

When my daughter and I arrived at our  house at one-thirty Sunday morning, she and my wife loaded into my daughter’s truck and left for the hospital.

Halie’s compadres have stood vigil for her at the hospital since the day of the accident . They are huddled up now in the ICU waiting area, a team of teenagers rooting for her.

It is now day 6, and Halie continues the fight.

And that tattoo she got on her eighteenth birthday.  It was only three words inscribed on her foot, the words of the famous Beatles’ song, Let it be.  For Halie that was her shorthand way of saying “everything happens for a reason.”  She just didn’t want her first tattoo to be that long.

The teenagers have set up a FB page that gives up to the minute reports about Halie and her battle to survive.  Please like Team Halie and keep Halie Moody in your prayers. http://www.facebook.com/TeamHalie

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