If I Could Go Back in Time

Would time travel help change the difficult things of the past?

Photo credit: Catherine Dunn-Gilbert, author

I was thinking about regrets the other day. Or maybe do-overs. Times in my life when disaster struck and perhaps if I could go back in time I could change the outcome.

Like when my son got hit by a car. Could I fix that? Stop my boy from riding his bike speedily down the driveway out to the quiet country road? Stop that car from coming up the hill? Would I be standing out there like a sentry directing the kids, watching for coming cars? Being a traffic cop on a street that only leads to a dozen houses? Would I do it every day?

I might be able to prevent that accident on that day but does that mean it would never have happened? Was that the only time that van, driven by our neighbour would come up the hill, view obscured by the heavy foliage of late spring at the same time as my son rode out the long gravel driveway? Trees were at their fullest, bushes bulging with growth, grass high, greenery everywhere.

Is it the only time one of my sons burst from the end of the driveway onto the road without looking; assuming that there were no cars since usually there weren't?

I will never know if I could have prevented my son from being hit by that van and tossed through the air. Because that time travel…