A few weeks ago, in Western North Dakota, three teenage boys were driving home together from a basketball tournament when the pickup they were in hit an icy patch on the highway and slid into the path of a semi.
None of them made it home that night.
When news of a tragedy like this spreads to our small town and rural neighborhoods, our hands go to our mouths and our hearts drop as we think of their families and remember our own losses.
These three young boys, though I didn’t know them, have been on my mind and on the minds of those across this state, which seems to get bigger and smaller all at once as we reach out and connect in our shared stories and experiences.
After this column was published I received email after email from those who were remembering someone they lost, or those grieving, or those comforted by reading words that were on their minds.
Thank you for those notes. The human experience is as tragic as it is beautiful and I am fortunate to have an outlet in which I can reach out and express my personal thoughts with the hope that they resonate with someone.
Your words back to me mean the world to me. It’s the reason I keep attempting to put thoughts down week after week.
Because we need to know that we’re not alone out here in this unpredictable world.
Coming Home: We’re just kids in cars
by Jessie Veeder
3-9-15
http://www.inforum.com
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... 
I’m sorry Jessie, so very sorry. I ache for the boys, for their parents and their communities….for all of us who have been kids in cars. And the friends we have lost. I don’t think the feelings you so poignantly shared ever go away and maybe that’s OK. Blessings to us all and to all kids in cars and their loved ones.
My heart goes out to the families and the community. I think we have all known kids in cars, some in our own families, or ones we grew up with. I remember one from I knew from 2nd grade on into high school, who crashed into a pole below the school one beautiful, bright blue day, not long after he got his license. My mother was working as a public health nurse, and the accident scene was not far from the main office. She stopped to help, but there was no helping him. The steering wheel had crushed his chest. She had known him from a little boy when she was working as a school nurse at our grade school. That was very hard on her to lose him.
Such a dreadful accident . We are such small towns that this affects everyone….Joan Thom
How very sad and tragic… Beautifully written.
Sixty years ago I witnessed a child falling out of the back seat of a car on the highway. That was prior to child-lock doors in cars. I can still see that child in my mind’s eye as clearly as though it was yesterday. Death before its time is always tragic.