A Moment's Inattention

My friend Len fell today.  Hard.
It was a silly little mistake, made in a hurry.  Len rode with leg warmers this morning, since it was quite cool.  He stopped mid-morning to remove them.  As we've both done dozens of times, for numerous reasons, he told me and today's other riding partner to keep going slowly; he'd catch up.  We didn't realize there was a stop about a mile later.  We stopped, surprised he hadn't caught us yet.  A few minutes later, someone asked me how Len was doing, since he looked pretty bloody at the side of the road.  In his hurry to catch us, Len had stuffed the leg warmers into his handlebar bag as he was taking off.  One dangled and got caught in the front wheel, stopping it instantly.  Momentum carried him over the handlebars and onto the road.  Fortunately, he suffered only minor scrapes and bumps; it could have been much worse.
Two careless mistakes were made.  One by Len, one by the rest of us riding together.  Lena's mistake was obvious and careless.
Our mistake was actually more careless.  We left another rider behind who got hurt and we didn't know.  The other 99 times we've stopped for a picture or a "natural break," the rider behind always caught up.  We got sloppy.  (Here come the "if's.")
If we'd stayed with him, he wouldn't have hurried and would have gotten things stowed before leaving.
If we'd been with him when he fell, we could have helped.  We were a mile away.

We weren't bad friends.  (Len has done the same for me on numerous occasions.)
But we were sloppy and careless.  Won't happen again.

It makes me wonder if some of our relationships responsibilities get dropped in families or churches for the same reason I dropped the ball today.  It's not that we intend to fail; it's just that we get too used to being inattentive.
Like I said, at least on this trip, it won't happen again.