I remember the crayon marks on our kitchen table, the coffee rings I never sanded away because they were part of our story, artifacts of ordinary life that now carried extraordinary meaning.
Emily pleaded to go with him; Josh followed, promising to select the music, a mundane argument that now seems achingly ordinary in hindsight.
I stood by the window, waving them off, my hand lingering on the glass as I murmured, “Drive safe, babe.”
Mark pressed a kiss to my forehead and whispered, “Always do,” unaware that it was the last time he would speak to me.
Twenty minutes later, faint sirens pierced the rain-drenched night, their sound almost imperceptible over the roar of water and wind.
My first thought was that someone else was having a bad night, entirely unaware that my own world had ended just three blocks away.
I returned to my laptop, typing a work email, oblivious to the calamity that had unfolded, until a knock at the door jolted me into a new reality.
It was 9:47 p.m., and my irritation at the interruption quickly melted into horror when I saw the two police officers, rain dripping from their caps, standing on the porch.
The older officer removed his hat, and the expression on his face communicated everything before a word had been spoken.
I collapsed, my knees giving way beneath me, and screamed — not my own voice, it felt alien, as though it belonged to someone else entirely.
The details of the accident followed: a drunk driver, the wrong side of the road, no time to react. But comprehension eluded me.
Three days later, I sat in the front row of the funeral, staring at three closed caskets.
Words of sympathy, memories of kindness, reflections on bright futures, all drifted past me like distant echoes underwater.
Someone held my hand, but I do not remember who, and I buried not just my family, but a part of myself alongside them.Continue reading…
