Saturday, April 7, 2012

"Your son died at the scene".

     "Your  son died at the scene." Those are the six short, simple, powerful, chillingly heart-breaking words which in an instant forever changed everything about my life. Nothing would ever make sense again. My life had been suddenly turned upside down and inside out as the county coroner told my wife and me what had happened on the night of February 15, 2001. We were in a small meeting room at a local hospital as the coroner met with us. I'm sure there were lights on in this room, but I only recall a sense of overwhelming darkness descending like a huge cloud all around us. I could hear the coroner's voice still talking, explaining more details of that night, but his voice sounded muffled as if he were speaking through water or from a great distance. Our beautiful, talented, loving, beloved 14-year old son, Curtis, had been killed in an automobile accident at the busy intersection less than five minutes from our home. He had been heading to a basketball game at the local high school where he was a student. He, along with two of his best friends from our neighborhood, were riding in the backseat of a car driven by the father of one of  his friends. The mother was in the front passenger seat. They were all laughing and joking when they were hit broadside by a car speeding through a red light. The three friends were all killed, the boys dying instantly, the girl being pronounced at the hospital. The unfortunate collision of those two cars at that moment in time set in motion a shock wave from which I was sure I would never recover.