A cross has stood in that field for three years. Three years since he smashed into me and the girls in my car that summer night. We were on our way home from dance camp. The girls escaped the wreck with minor injuries. I barely survived.
He died.
Over the past month, we've come to learn a few things, and are quickly realizing that the best way to heal, is to help others in need. My mom had a crash course in injustice the past month, and through her experience, she is wanting to make a difference.
My love affair with Harry Potter started unceremoniously during a horrendous flu. Previously I’d listened to NPR where a cocky commentator compared the series to Lord of the Rings, and I swore that I would never read it because such a comparison had to be foolish.
I continued to repeat this half-truth to myself as the EVP expert set up a recording, and then the lie stopped. A guttural, angry non-human voice in a choir of screams filled the room. I was nauseous with terror.
“But let me tell you something,” she said, leaning forward, her face tightening. “Every single person here thinks about it. But no one talks about it. Ever. They’ll talk about the weather. They’ll talk about the food. Or they won’t talk at all. But it’s on everyone’s mind.”
I wonder what bleakness, what solitude, what sublime beauty could fill a heart craving the adrenaline of the fall. Was she proving herself immortal or simply proving her willingness to die young, a culmination of her long efforts to outrun life? It would come down to something that simple.
I just want you to know that even though I have the rest of my life to get through without you, getting to be your mom even for such a short amount of time was worth it. I want you to know that I will never ever forget you and I will always fiercely love you.
It’s been 4 years since my mother’s death and as time passes, I remember less and less about her. One day when I’m older and grayer, I fear I won’t recall much about her at all.
My hands shook harder now as I changed back into my clothes, gulping two glasses of water, then a third as we rode the elevator down. I held Brett’s hand tightly, willing the nausea away. I wanted to vomit out the worry, the anxious thoughts that something was wrong.
I found a counselor and a psychiatrist and I got on a regimen of medicines and talk therapy that seemed to bring me closer to functioning again. And after therapy sessions, I took deep, three-hour naps on that couch.
