CHAOS CHOREOGRAPHY open thread!

That was a heart wrenching moment, especially because of how Fran left. She didn't make a choice, she just got careless. That was what hit me so hard about her death, it was so pedestrian. She was a fearsome, capable woman but she didn't die facing some great threat but rather in familiar territory she had traversed countless times. In the end it was that familiarity that did her in, I think.

What really hit me about it was what she told Mary at her grave, "I just didn't look where I was goin'." It brought back memories of something that happened to me several years ago. I was jogging along a highway I had jogged on hundreds of times, dressed in bright, high visibility clothes and running against traffic, which was sparse. The car was traveling in the same direction I was, and crossed the center line and struck me from behind. I don't remember the accident, just waking up in the hospital in a lot of pain. I'm sure I must have heard the car coming, and since it was on the opposite side of the road I didn't worry about it. If I had just turned to look behind me, maybe I would have noticed it was behaving erratically. But I didn't, so I spent most of the next year in a wheelchair. I was very fortunate I didn't die, because the driver never stopped, and to this day I don't know whether it was a result of intoxication, fatigue or distraction, because they were never caught.

So I can well imagine what Fran thought in her final moments, "Why didn't I just look?" I'm sure she must have felt, profoundly, that she had failed everyone she loved, especially Alice, but I think the bravest thing she ever did was choosing to move on. As she said, if she stayed, she'd have been doing it for herself, not for them. Alice, however, was very much alive when she chose to leave her children in the care of others. I love her, and I'm not going to judge her decision, but I think Kevin and Jane have a right to feel some resentment. That doesn't mean they don't love her, and the fact that Kevin sent her to back Verity up shows that he isn't afraid to entrust the safety of his children to her.