Another long term change

Randy and I had the opportunity to have an afternoon alone. We went and ran some errands and then went to lunch. Jennifer had gone with her sister Christmas shopping. As we ordered our food we were talking about some of the things we are doing in the backyard. It was then that Jennifer called on Randy's cell phone. She sounded excited and was talking really fast, Randy was struggling to understand her and all he got was "Call Kim". He then tried to call Kim but no one answered, then he tried to call Jenn back and it went right to voice mail. I think prior to 2000, I would have thought something like, they need to ask us a shopping question about Christmas or something like that. I would have taken the normal course of assumption which goes from A to B then to C. We wouldn't have panicked or probably even been overly concerned. But now, it seems like we go from A to Z. From calm to panic in one leap. I sat at the table as Randy called over and over trying to get ahold of one of the girls. I could see the deep concern on his face and I was feeling my stomach start to roll. My heart was pounding in my chest and I said "did it sound like they were in an accident?" How would we find them if they were hurt? Randy kept on calling as our lunch arrived, by now we were not feeling hungry and we were both trying to stay calm and rational. That was taking all of our will power. Finally Randy got ahold of Kim, Jen was just trying to tell us her cell phone battery was dying and if we needed to call her we needed to call Kim's cell phone. AHHHHHHHH. We sat at the table after that, talking about what we were thinking and how we were feeling. We talked about why it was we immediately panic now. We both agreed that once you have walked down that road you now have a real understanding of how terrible it can be. Before we only imagined how aweful it could be, now we really know and we don't think we could handle another trauma like that. Its fear, fear that we think we've tamed yet rears its ugly head at a moments notice and trys to strangle us. Ughhhh Will we ever get over it? Will we ever think normal thoughts during times like this or will we always think the worst? Will we ever get a grip on the fear or will the fear always have a grip on us? Logically, spiritually we agree that to worry and fear things is wrong, yet our hearts can't hear our brains.