April 15, 2013

Trigger Alert: this is a story about death & loss, specifically the death of our son in a car accident all but ten years ago, told from his point of view. The events are real, though his thoughts are obviously fictional. I’ve written it mostly in hopes of finding some catharsis & share it with you as part of that quest. But if such things make you squeamish, & especially if you knew our son, please don’t read any further. Those who have become a part of this community of loss would sincerely wish that no one else need come to understand what we’re going through, not even so much as to read a story.

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Where am I?

My eyes open without having been closed. I see the road beneath me, but my feet are not on the ground. I’m not sure where they are. I’m not sure where any of me is.

Except that I can see the bend in highway 36 directly below me, just six miles from home. And two vehicles. One, an SUV that was heading east, thrust to the south shoulder, its driver slumped over the steering wheel. The other, mom’s Buick LeSabre, still sitting in the middle of the highway facing west, its front end crushed beyond recognition, the inner console pressed so far back there’s no longer enough room…,

…for me!

What happened? What was I doing? It was after school. I was in Marysville at Walmart picking up supplies to make garters to sell for prom. (They were quite popular. I’d sold so many I’d already run out of fabric & elastic.)

I was doing something else there, too. Delivering a dress to a someone who couldn’t afford one!

I had been working for months with a friend, receiving donations of used dresses & matching them with young women who could use them. We’d been very busy. Prom at the school we attended was just three days ago on Friday night. I had taken my boyfriend. It was the first time in Washington County Public School history that two boys had been allowed to attend prom as one another’s date! I had worked hard to earn that one. The administration had been supportive. Some in the community, not so much. My classmates had become accustomed to me.

There’d been an after-prom all-nighter, followed by a few winks of shuteye, then off to help others get ready for their prom in Salina. Some friends had invited me &, after all, what’s a one-hundred-mile drive on very little sleep? I loved attending prom! I’d been going since eighth grade. And though I may not have ever had a girlfriend, I’ve had lots of friends who are girls & who love to dance.

That was Saturday. I didn’t get home until Sunday afternoon. Slept right through church! My parents understood. They knew I had a lot going on & they wanted me to enjoy these rites of passage my senior year. That, & it’s really not easy being gay & the only child of two United Methodist Church pastors.

But what was today? Still Sunday? Or was it Monday? That’s right. I’d come home from school, snuck mom’s keys, loaded the dress into her car & taken it without her knowledge. (Hers was nicer & had room to lay out the dress. Mine…, well let’s just say it wasn’t & didn’t.)

Mom’s car! Sh…*t! (Oops, I almost let it slip. Not that my parents minded when I used that kind of language. Dad always said it was just a series of vowels & consonants. It was the meaning the words were meant to convey that mattered & that meant it wasn’t any worse than when he said, “Crap!” Even so, allow me to rephrase that.)

Shee…oot! Mom’s gonna kill me! She loved that car. She’d gone so far as to name it Grace…, of which that's pretty much all that's left for her. She’s not going anywhere under her own power. Tow her to the junkyard & sell her for scrap. Tough as they are, not even a LeSabre comes back from something like this.

But what had I been doing? It’s my…, that is, mom’s car sitting in the middle of the road. I was the one who crossed over the line. This was my fault. What was I doing!?

Had I fallen asleep? Was the sun in my eyes? Changing the music in the CD player? Had my cerebral palsy finally gotten to me & I passed out? Was I texting?

No, I distinctly remember that I stopped texting as I approached the end of the four-lane road. I’d been teasing my boyfriend about loving French fries from Mickey D’s. He’s an award-winning chef & heading off to culinary school this fall. I’m heading toward Fashion Institute of Design & Mercha….”

No…. I don’t think I am anymore.

Traffic has stopped from both directions. The driver of a semi is out of his truck & talking on his cell phone as he picks his way through the debris, only glancing toward me & the other driver long enough to see if there’s anything he can do. She’s still breathing, but barely.

I hear sirens. Police, firetrucks, ambulances—long streams of them from both east & west. More than I’ve ever seen at one time.

What time is it? It has to be after five. Dad’s done at the food bank. He will have taken the recycling & returned home. This is the time he’d be deciding whether he was going to go to a movie tonight in Marysville. Alex (the owner & manager) gave pastors free passes & so this was when he often went to see something neither mom nor I were interested in.

Oh, God! He might already have left & is one of those stopped on the road wondering what has happened. If he has to drive past, slowly, the way one has to in these situations where emergency personnel are on the scene….

And that would mean mom would be at home while he’s at the movie, over twenty miles apart, when each of them find out. I know dad & I have had our differences lately, but would he even be able to make it home…, to be with her?

I can see them setting up detours in the distance. Highway patrol is directing traffic, helping people get their vehicles turned back so they can go around. Good. I don’t see dad’s car, but this is better anyway. I don’t want anyone….

It suddenly occurs to me, I haven’t looked to see myself inside the Buick. There’s not much room in there, but I have to, before the EMTs arrive.

Damn! I look good! You wouldn’t know anything had happened to look at me, just a little blood trickle from my left ear. I puff out a chest I no longer have & think to myself, “I make one fine lookin’ corpse!”

The EMTs arrive. One of them looks familiar. Dad did his wedding a while back. He married one of my best friends. I watch him as another EMT checks for a pulse. His eyes are falling. He knows. He looks like he’s going to be sick, but manages to keep it together. Afterall, he has a job to do.

Others are working on the woman. They’ve found a pulse, but it’s faint. When will the jaws of life get here?

And then it’s gone. I see them performing CPR as best they can while her body is still trapped in the vehicle. And then I see their heads & arms drop, their bodies sag. Slowly they get up, back away, & wait for the jaws.

I sense her presence, drifting alongside me. We watch as the crews work to recover our vacant bodies, place them in the back of two ambulances soon to be heading in opposite directions.

“I should be going, now,” she says weakly. “They’ll be needing me.”

“I…, I…, I’m sorry” I stammer back to her. I can’t believe I’ve taken another’s life. Tears would be streaming down my cheeks right now if I had any. No tear ducts, no tears, I guess.

“It’s okay,” she replies back. I have her forgiveness.

But will I ever be able to forgive myself?

I want to hug her & hold onto her, for us to be able to cry for a while together. But I have no idea how. I haven’t even been able to look at her.

“You better go, too,” she says to me softly. “They’ll be needing you even more. I’ve had a pretty full life. Yours was just beginning.”

She stays with me as I continue to watch, as though wanting to make sure I am going to be okay. Then we leave, just as the wreckers begin to hook their chains to the carnage we’re leaving behind.

I see my mother. She’s in the living room watching tv. Dad’s in the basement watching a movie. They’ve ordered pizza from Gambino’s & have begun wondering where I am.

Somehow, I sense that word is spreading. But my parents don’t know yet. Not until the doorbell rings & mom finds two highway patrol officers standing outside. They won’t tell her anything until dad is there with her. Mom calls to him from the top of the stairs.

All four of them sit on the couch. I can see in their eyes they already know what’s coming, that their hearts are breaking before the words are even spoken. I have always known they loved me, no matter how much I might have complained. But I’ve never known their love the way I know it now.

This is the hardest part. Watching them as they listen to one of the officers tell them, “Your son was in an accident. He didn’t make it.” I can actually feel the tears running down my cheeks, even though they are no longer there. The truth is, I love them, too, more than anything else in this world. I wonder if they know that.

Dad asks if anyone else was hurt. They tell him of the woman. He knows her. They were friends. They worked every year on the Angel Tree project together.

The officers tell them that my body has been taken to the hospital here in town. They ask if mom & dad want them to drive them there. Mom looks at dad. He shakes his head & says that they’ll want to have a car to drive back home. And then the officers leave.

Mom & dad look numb. They use the shortest of sentences as they speak to one another. They get in dad’s car & head to find me, to find what’s left of me.

For some reason, I linger for a while, drifting among the branches of the tree in the front yard. I see a young man, an underclassman to whom I had not always been kind, walking up the sidewalk. He approaches the front door, thinks better of it, then sits down on the steps. He stays there all night, letting classmates know as they come by that what they’ve heard is true & that they should go to the hospital.

I’ve known kindness & I’ve known cruelty in my life. This is something different, something more. For the longest time I watch him. With every passing moment my appreciation grows, my silent heart surging with gratitude.

By the time I find myself at the hospital, drifting through the halls, my mother has called my boyfriend, her sister, then my grandfather so he can notify the rest of the family. Her sister is the only one left on her side. There are a whole slew on my father’s side.

She’s in with the woman filling out forms for organ donation. I always wanted to be a donor, to help save or at least improve someone else’s life. But I’ve been gone too long. And I’m gay. They can’t even use my eyes or skin.

Dad’s in the emergency room where my body is laid out on a gurney. He’s stroking my dark, kinky hair. At one point he reflects to my classmates & friends who have gathered & are sitting in chairs against the opposite wall, “He always hated when I’d do this. If he was able, he’d be swatting my hand away right now.”

And yet, he keeps on stroking it, ever so tenderly. Somehow, I don’t seem to mind.

Our family doctor comes through the door. Another friend, & a member of dad’s church here in town. He explained to my folks the damage to my internal organs, a ruptured spleen among other things. “None of which is compatible with life,” he said with elegiac eyes searching for something he’d never yet been able to find in all his years of practice.

My parents sign what they need to sign. The funeral home comes—also, friends of both mom & dad. Six years of working together at times just like this—my parents like them a lot. They treat my body as though I am their only child, gently, with dignity & respect.

Do my parents even remember driving home? I wonder as I watch them trying to sleep through what little remains of the night.

When they wake, I observe as they try to shake this new reality, begging that it be nothing more than a nightmare from which they are now ready to wake. They tremble, shake. Dad pounds his forehead with the heel of his hand over & over & over. Mom weeps, unable to do much more than sit & stare into space.

Tears will flow until there is no more saltwater left in the ocean. It will take weeks, but they will become increasingly intermittent. And I know, though hearts will remain broken, it will get easier.

I want to tell them it’s okay…, to wrap my arms around them & let them know we’ll be okay. But if they saw me again…, would they ever be able to let go?

And I am ready. I’ve been drifting through this nether land, floating from family to friends to loves, slowly letting go. In life, I was gay—flamboyantly so—& I loved it. Even the hard parts I’m growing to appreciate, though my friends & family who stood by me I will forever treasure most dearly.

Now, in this new life, I find that I am loved, even more than I ever before could have imagined. I belong to God. I belong to Jesus. I belong to Muhammed & Moses & Buddha & every other of God’s emissaries who at any time taught us to love one another. I am ready to cease this endless meandering flight of soul & spirit.

It’s time to spread my wings & soar. It’s time to go home.