"Ding, dong, the Dows are dead!" my daughter chanted in a sinister voice. 

She was singing this made up ditty in response to my husband flying late last week to see his ailing dad and the possibility that he might get COVID while traveling. 

"Dad's going on the airplane, and then he'll get COVID and then he'll give COVID to us and then we'll all go to the hospital and then we'll all die".

Have you done this before? It's called catastrophizing (going from best case to worst case scenario or imagining the worst possible result).

I'm guilty of this, too.

While doing the dishes after dinner this week I was simultaneously figuring out how I would manage the kids because I was sure that my husband was in a car crash since he was 30 minutes late from dropping off my daughter. 

He was actually just in the garage on a business call. 

We imagine the worst case outcomes when it comes to our partners, our kids and our bodies. You fear...