November 22nd

It wasn't completely unusual that my dad was home early that day. It was, after all, the day before Thanksgiving and I had a half day at school so he probably had a half day at work. But something felt... wrong. As I was going upstairs to put my stuff away my dad told me to come back down after I was done. Feeling odd I asked, “Did somebody die?” which was weird of me to assume, but I guess sometimes your spirit just knows. It can feel that the earth became more lonely somehow.

“Yes.” was my dad's short reply.

We were suppose to be getting ready to leave to go to Logan, Utah for Thanksgiving that year to be with my mom's family. Normally we spent the holiday with the only family we had in Boise- my dad's cousin Keith, his wife Nancy and their kids- the oldest being my age and best friend, Alyse. We had grown up together in Boise since we were what? 4 years old? But a few months earlier they had moved to Texas and it seemed like the worse thing that had ever happened to me.

My mind started racing at my dad's honest answer. Who could have died? “Oh no!” I thought, “my grandma or grandpa!” and I raced down the stairs.

I sat on the left side of the couch. My mom was in the rocking chair, crying. My sister Erin was on the right side of the couch. Where was my dad sitting? I don't even know... he might as well have been floating in the air because all I know is that he started by saying:

“So Keith and Nancy were driving...”

“Semi truck... van.... all the kids were there.... Nancy died on impact... Keith hospital...life support”

I never saw the semi truck or the van. The road. Nothing. That day a few words were the weapons that killed my loved ones. Simple words. I could never forgive the letters that came together to form those words.

November 22, 2000. Three days after I had turned 15. The day before Thanksgiving.

I had never dealt with death like this before or with this kind of shock. I remember laying in the back seat of our Windstar van driving down to Logan, of all the god-forsaken places (so it seemed that day.) I cried and I slept and cried. The sky was ugly and grey and as it darkened it was as if God's pen broke, leaking black ink onto any light. I was mad that my parents were dragging me down there. I had offered all the savings that my teenage self had to get an flight to Texas- to get to Alyse and her 4 younger siblings who were in the hospital- but of course a last minute holiday flight cost a million dollars and besides, what was I going to do but be in the way? We had no choice but to sit back and wait....

Wait for more news.

News that on Thanksgiving day Keith was taken off life support and sent home to be with his beautiful wife.

News that the baby, Caleb, may not live. But no, he's going to make it.

News that the other kids would be fine but there were some broken bones.

News.

I put a brown blanket on the floor in my cousin's room that night and laid down on it, refusing to move. My two younger cousins were too little to understand and kept trying to get me to play. I wouldn't respond. I just laid there.

After that blur of a weekend I went back to school for a day or two before heading to Utah for the funerals. My earth science teacher smiled with her long blonde hair to her waist, and asked how my break was.

“People died.” I said with a blank stare and took my seat.

Some of my friends seemed to care. But others didn't understand. At lunch break we sat on the stairs in the hall of our high school. I told them briefly what happened. They exclaimed, “Oh my gosh! Oh terrible” and then continued on talking about boys and who they wanted to kiss. In that moment I decided something that would shape who I am, even to this day. “Few people care and only those few people should be trusted. I will put on a show of happiness for everyone else.”

We went to Utah for the funerals. Alyse needed me that week. I sat by her in a small closet/room as she lay on the bed, her crutches on the ground, wheelchair somewhere outside. We talked for hours. She told me everything- every detail and every horrific thing she went though. Saw. Heard. 13 years later I have not forgotten a single detail.

She wanted me next to her at the funeral so I sat up there in one of the first rows with her and all the immediate family members- right where I felt my emotions belonged even if my branch on the family tree didn't.

Who even knows what the sky looked like that day. In my memories it is pale and grey. Empty and cold. Perhaps it was sunny and gleaming with jewels of sapphire, but I can't image God would be so unsympathetic.

There are details seared, etched and carved into the wood of my mind about that time that I will not write today. Today I think of something else.

It was hard then, and in the coming years, to know what I was allowed to feel. I hurt so intensely for the loss of two people who seemed like second parents to me. But any emptiness I may have felt was trumped by the pain and complete glass-shattering anguish of not being able to take my best friend's pain away from her much greater loss.

How many times did I beg God to let me take her pain for just a day? “I will feel everything she's feeling- everything! Just let her have one day to feel the heaviness lift. I will carry it all!”

And how many times did He have to remind me that that wasn't my job?

Many times it has seemed that the greatest trials in my life have been to watch others go through hell, knowing that I cannot take it all away from them.

Perhaps this is why I am so afraid to lose Buck or June or another close family member. I have seen too many ghosts, gone to too many funerals, seen all the empty, numb eyes stare at a grave. I know that since I cannot take another's pain away that nobody would ever be able to take mine.

Alyse needed me that week. But afterwards life needed to move on, and she needed space more. To help her pain I had to retreat. Death has a funny way of killing more than people. It kills dreams and ideas, future dinners around the table- and in some cases, friendships.

Thirteen years have passed now, however. Alyse and I started rebuilding a relationship after high school and we became each others trusted confidants again. A gift I never forget.

I understand better that within God's wonderful plan there is someone who can take away all of our pains. It's impossible to comprehend it all but I know that Jesus Christ came to earth to suffer for us. He gave us a way to have freedom from the pains of this earth. I don't know how much time it takes for each person before He finally takes it ALL but I believe He sometimes will carry our cross at least for a day here and there until we can make it home to be with Him. After all, He carried His.

And I learned that I still have a role to play. I cannot take the heavy buckets from my friends' hands and carry them but I can be the stick across their shoulders to put the buckets on to help distribute the weight.

This month at the most recent funeral I attended, an apostle of God spoke and told us how death is a precious gift to God. It's a homecoming. It's a calming perspective to see it that way. A Gift.

And until we all have that heavenly homecoming party with our family, I know that we can find pieces of it here to guide us.

Tall grass. Soft, singing winds. Laughter.

And lullabies.

“Goodnight my angel, time to close your eyes
And save these questions for another day
I think I know what you've been asking me
I think you know what I've been trying to say
I promised I would never leave you
Then you should always know
Wherever you may go, no matter where you are
I never will be far away

Goodnight my angel, now it's time to sleep
And still so many things I want to say
Remember all the songs you sang for me
When we went sailing on an emerald bay
And like a boat out on the ocean
I'm rocking you to sleep
The water's dark and deep, inside this ancient heart
You'll always be a part of me

Goodnight my angel, now it's time to dream
And dream how wonderful your life will be
Someday your child may cry, and if you sing this lullaby
Then in your heart there will always be a part of me
Someday we'll all be gone
But lullabies go on and on
They never die
That's how you and I will be.”

Song lyrics from Billy Joel's "Lullaby." 

And for the record,

 this was more terrifying to post

 than I first imagined it would be.