or 10 years, 5 months, and 24 days but who's counting? The Voice began their Finale show with a tribute to the 26 beautiful souls that perished last week in Sandy Hook. My heart once again broke as I flashed back to several choppy scenes from 10 years+ ago. Standing in the middle of the highway praying an oil truck would just mow me down. Me - the Responsible One just wanted out, gone, finished. That wasn't to be. Knowing deep in my heart the news would not be good from the brain probe inserted into K.C.'s head looking for activity wouldn't be good. Looking down on my 5'5" niece and thinking how is that possible the Surbuban is shorter than Ronita? Wondering how Whitney and I would cope if the ultimate happened and we lost both Dad and brother? My brain just kept shorting out. Jumping from one jumble to another. It finally boiled down to just living one second at a time. I remember sitting outside the counselor's office looking blankly at the intake paper I was supposed to fill out. How could I manage to go on when I couldn't even comprehend the black and white scribbles before me? HOW do I use a pen? If the phone rings one more time I'm taking a hammer to it. (Kevin/Ronnie finally began screening the calls. I pray people are doing that in Sandy Hook.) Taking the responsibility on my own to make something positive occur by using Organ Donation for K.C. Later they found Ken's wallet and thankfully he had checked Organ Donation on his license. Having such disjointed thoughts spew from my mouth which really worried them about my mental state. I didn't have a mental state. If he lived I knew life would be a big struggle for awhile and that was just one we didn't have to have. In a 96 hour period we were all reeling from losing our Mom-Grandma-Ggm and Ggma as well as a son-brother-nephew-cousin.Me?? I have to tighten the SCREWS into his HEAD - no way, no way, no way. Yet there WAS a way. Buck up girl and find a way. I did.
How selfish I was. Life was about to get real bad for many people. There really is so much pain other's have that was/is worse than mine. Mine is heart pain - Ken's is not only heart pain but physical pain that just keeps rolling on and on and on............ A small reprieve here and there. Our comfort (one sided though it it) was that it was an ACCIDENT. That's why they call it that. It sure as the devil wasn't an On Purpose.
Yet now 10+years later parents of First Graders are trying to cope with just that - an On Purpose. My heart isn't hemorrhaging pain for me/us but for those parents, siblings, gparents, aunt, uncles cousins and neighbors. The road they have begun to walk is so fraught with holes, boulders and quagmires and many, many landmines. Things, ideas and happenings they couldn't in their wildest imaginings come up with will happen. The grief cycle is an individual one - each going their own way - trying to cope with each day. Take 7000 pieces of 8" string and put them into 2 balls. The same string won't come out of both balls at the same time. Grief is like that. One string may come partly out then get stuck and you pull on another. Sometime you'll go back and pick up the stuck one and attempt it again. One can't dictate how another will grieve. The strain on the marriages and family life could become unbearable and statistically some won't survive.
I SO pray the town get good counseling - from folks that "get it". I pray the senseless words freeze up in people throats and WON'T sally forth: "It's so good you have others to love" (like I can't still love ALL of them!); "Maybe you can have another to take his/her place."; "Don't you think it's time to move on?" (YOU move on stupid - and stay out of their faces); "You're dwelling on it too much - you need to think of something else" (like I CAN you twit) and the folks that come to show sympathy when in actuality they just want the inside scoop. Yes, there are real stupid people out there that don't know when to superglue their lips shut and being able to only do good things - a pat on the shoulder, a hug or "Thinking about you". Just wanting to talk and talk and talk - please let someone be there for each of them - a nonjudgmental someone. If it makes you uncomfortable get out or deal with it. I remember seeing on folks faces they didn't really want to listen because it made them think about the own/children's mortality? Possibly.
And it's not just the relatives - it's the entire community. I pray for serenity for ALL of them. Frustration and tempers - however inadvertent - will fray. This isn't something they will all miraculously come to grips with in 8 days, 6 hours, 12 minutes and 43 seconds. I remember Ken coming home and saying one of his fellow rehabers was 10 years out and still not back to par. We looked at one another and both thought - Nahhh, it won't take that long for US. We're different. A few years later I, too, pulled the "it'll take years card" for a couple and those two also had the Nahhh, not us, we're different. They weren't aren't. Well we are all wrong. 330,958,200 seconds and counting and we STILL get blindsided.
BUT - they are ALL okay - K.C. promised us that - may they all have a parent's comfort.
And finally....... Hallelujuh!
2 comments:
Beautiful sista!
You said it all. Bless you, and bless all of them.
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