When traveling with children, the question lingers: ‘What if?’

MY family and I were on a Christmas cruise of the Mexican Riviera when we learned of the tsunami that devastated South Asia. Standing in the lovely gym of the Diamond Princess, I watched the horrifying images flash across the TV screen and heard the almost incomprehensible death toll, the newscasters ticking off countries, dividing the victims into adults and children, citizens and vacationers.

My heart went out to those residents who had lost their lives, their families, their homes. And I felt a deep pang for those who were there on holiday. Especially the parents who could not find their children. Who took their children to this place for no reason but fun and now could not find them.

This is my worst nightmare. The day you become a parent, the Worst Case Scenario becomes something you cannot bear to think about: Your own death is trivial compared to the possibility of losing your child.

I look at my children, even when they are driving me insane, which is often, and I know that my goal in life is no longer to write a bestselling novel or to win a Pulitzer Prize or even to get to heaven. My goal, the only thing that really, truly matters to me, is that my children live to be old, that they live long after my own death.

And I never worry more about losing my children than just before we leave on a trip. We all know that bad things happen every day, that deaths can happen five miles from home or in the bathtub or in the car. Even so, the routine of daily life reassures us. Thus far, our children have safely negotiated the playground, the freeway, Venice Beach, so there is no reason to believe that this won’t always be true.

But travel is the great unknown; an adventure is never completely safe, and that’s part of the thrill, although if there is peril, one hopes it will be something along the lines of getting lost in the French countryside.

My husband and I are cautious travelers, especially with our children -- we have not ventured to lands that require vaccinations or State Department clearance. We would not take our small children on safari or on a Himalayan trek because I worry enough going to Western Europe and Mexico.

I worry that the plane will crash and that only I will survive. I worry that we will be standing in front of a foreign government building or museum and a bomb will go off. I worry that the kids will wander away and I will never see them again. I worry that they will get some horrible infection that will kill them.

Before we went to Ireland, I stared into the darkness at 4 a.m. and saw Danny fall from the Cliffs of Mohr; before we got on the cruise ship, I lost sleep thinking about Fiona going over the side.

Travel worry is worse than everyday panic flashes about traffic accidents or fires or mall kidnappings. Travel is purely discretionary, a choice my husband and I make, putting our faith in the fact that most airplanes do not crash, that cruise ships are designed to keep people, including small children, from falling overboard.

That tsunamis rarely occur.

When tragedy strikes, it reminds us that the impossible is possible. That is the nature of tragedy; it takes our secret fears and writes them large. Aboard our Christmas cruise, there were nervous jokes about “The Poseidon Adventure”-- my brother and I checked to see if the tables were bolted to the floor because that was how the characters played by Pamela Sue Martin and Roddy McDowall survived. And then news of the tsunami broke.

The suffering and anguish that have afflicted so many in South Asia will, one hopes, continue to spark sympathy and generosity among the rest of the world and put many of our problems into perspective.

For travelers, it would be easy to read the stories and become afraid, more reluctant to leave the safety of the known for the adventure of the new. But there are no precautions to take against tragedy -- that too is the nature of tragedy. It is something beyond our control.

So instead of being afraid, better to be grateful. For houses still standing and vacations enjoyed, for the ability to touch the people you love even when they’re driving you nuts. And for the luxury of being able to wonder “what if ...” and never ever know.