When we got back to the house, opened up the door and went inside, it had never seemed so empty, quiet and lifeless. All I wanted to do was either scream my head off until I had no voice left or sit down and hope that this was all a mistake and would just go away. After all, we hadn't actually seen our son's body yet. He'd already been transported to the morgue at the county coroner's office. We didn't need to identify the body because he'd had his ID with him. We'd been given few details about what kind of condition his body was in after the accident, but if he was severely injured we weren't sure we would be able to handle seeing him in that kind of shape anyway. I knew I needed to make some calls in spite of the lateness of the hour. I was 44 years old at this time, but the first person I wanted to call was my mother. No matter how old we get I guess there are just sometimes when a guy needs his mom. I knew if I called her this late, she would realize right away that something was terribly wrong. I also knew, however, that if I didn't tell her right away about something this important, she would probably never forgive me. As I picked up the phone to call her and my stepdad, I knew she would be someone who would know exactly what we were facing-my oldest brother had died some 32 years ago. How could I tell my mother that she had now lost a grandson?

   We recovered our senses enough to ask the officer to drop us off at our neighbors' house where our son and daughter were waiting. As we got out, they again expressed their condolences and the chaplain pressed a card into my hand saying, "Please let me know if there's anything I can do for you." I wasn't  even sure at this point I would be able to walk up to our neighbors' door. My wife and I grasped hands and began to woodenly walk toward the door. We stopped as we got to the door. I knew as soon as we rang the bell and stepped inside we would have to tell our children the terrible truth. I didn't think I'd be able to find the words. We were greeted by our neighbor who looked at us with hopeful eyes. I just shook my head. My wife fell into our neighbor's arms. Casey and Carly came anxiously to meet us with hopeful looks on their faces. I took my 16-year old son by the shoulders while my wife enveloped our 10-year old daughter in her arms. I looked Casey straight in the eye and said, "I'm so sorry, but your brother is gone." Behind me Carly screamed out her anguished questions, "Curtis died? He's dead?
Casey dropped his eyes, but never said a word. Our neighbors encircled us-the first moments of  the kind of comfort we were going to need for months-years-to come. We discussed what few facts we knew. We learned that our son's friends had also not survived the accident and that the parents who had been driving were both in the hospital. It seemed as if a massive dark cloud of shock and grief had descended over our neighborhood. How could something so horrible happen to us-to all of us? Our kids had all grown up together. Now three of them were gone in the blink of an eye, and the rest of us were left to somehow endure? Three families, an entire neighborhood and community rocked to the core?  Besides our family being forever changed by this night, our neighborhood as well would never be the same.  I remember thinking that maybe if I just stayed in my neighbors' house long enough that this would all turn out just to be someone's idea of a sick joke, but we knew there were things we needed to start doing even though it was 11:00 at night. Our neighbor and his son took our car keys and walked down to the corner to retrieve our vehicles for us and parked them in our driveway. As the four of us left our neighbors' home to walk the short distance back to our house it struck me that this would now have to become our new reality-just the four of us. There would never be five of us again.

   We were too numbed by what we'd just been told to even ask very many questions. All we could do was just sit there trying to absorb the most horrible news any parent could ever hear. I remember riding back toward the intersection in the squad car and thinking about-nothing. I couldn't focus on anything. I knew our lives had just changed dramatically and irrevocably in a most catastrophic way, but my mind was swirling in a million different directions without really landing on any one thought for more than a few seconds. The officer asked if we wanted to go back to the intersection where we'd left our cars parked or be taken to our home. I don't remember even being able to answer that question. I do remember the chaplain telling the other officer that he didn't think we were in any condition to be driving even that short distance to our home. The officer agreed. As we passed through the intersection the last of the emergency vehicles were finishing up. Our neighbor's mangled car was up on a tow truck. A few thoughts now began to form in my disjointed mind: what had happened to the other people in the car-our son's friends and the parents who had been driving? How would I ever be able to drive through this intersection again? Most chillingly-how would I ever find the words to tell our other two children that their brother would never be coming home again?

   It was then that we heard for the first time those six heart-wrenching words: "Your son died at the scene." The coroner went on to express his condolences, but I don't really remember hearing his words any longer. I'd heard the only words that mattered. "Your son died at the scene." The room seemed to go entirely black. I remember a scream of disbelief coming out of my mouth. I remember my wife looking at me like I was crazy. She said later that she wondered what was wrong with me because there had to be some mistake. It couldn't possibly be true. Our son could not be dead. It didn't even occur to me at the time to be angry about the charade that we had been put through by the police. Our son had never even been transported to any hospital. They had known all along that he had already died. We were kept in the dark all that time, hoping against hope that what we feared the most could not possibly be true. We found out later that they were following department procedures because they were not prepared for any of the parents to show up at the scene and question what was going on. No one at the scene was authorized to tell us what had really happened. All I knew at this time was that if this news were true everything-absolutely EVERYTHING-large and small in my life had just changed forever.

   Finally, the officer came back out and told us it was ok to go inside. They walked us through the ambulance bay doors and into the emergency room. I felt like I was walking through a muddy swamp. My feet would not seem to move. I wanted to get to my son as quickly as possible, but all the events of the last couple of hours seemed to be weighing me down. I had begun to realize what we might be facing. No one from the hospital staff came to greet us and direct us to our son. Instead we were ushered into a small, dimly-lit room where we were told someone would come to talk to us soon. Sure enough, a man came in just moments after we sat down, but he wasn't from the hospital staff. His ID badge indicated he was from the county coroner's office.

   After what seemed like hours, but was probably closer to 10 minutes, we finally arrived at the hospital. We wanted to rush inside, but again the officer and the chaplain delayed us and kept us standing outside the ambulance entrance to the emergency room for several more minutes. We were told that the ER personnel were not ready to let us in yet. The officer went inside while the chaplain kept us outside on the sidewalk. The chaplain did his best to engage us in small talk while simultaneously trying to provide us with comfort and hope, but as I realized later, he was careful not to really tell us anything about our son or the accident. After several more minutes had passed we were growing more and more agitated and impatient. We wanted to know what was happening with our son! Why were they not helping us? What were they trying not to tell us? We both feared we knew the answer to that question.

   When I got to the corner I found my wife already standing there. She greeted me frantically with the words I was dreading to hear, "It was their car! It was Curtis. They were in an accident. I found his jacket and my cellphone in the grass. They won't tell me where he is or what's happened to him!" I put my arm around her shoulder and together we walked out to the middle of the intersection where the police officers were standing. They still would not (or could not) give us much information about what had happened to our son. Was he injured? What hospital had he been take to? Was he alive? My mind was reeling and flooded with questions, some of which I could not bring myself to give voice to.  One officer said he would try to find out where our son had been taken. Finally after several minutes of standing in the middle of the street immersed in our worst fears, we were told that he had been taken to a local hospital. The officer said that he would transport us in a squad car and that the department chaplain would accompany us. I was so caught up in the situation that only later did it dawn on me why the chaplain needed to come with us to the hospital. What I said before about the drive from the high school to the corner being the worst drive of my life was wrong. The drive to the hospital was the worst. I wondered why the officer and the chaplain seemed to be chatting so calmly with each other. I told myself, "I guess it's because they deal with things like this all the time." Why aren't we going faster? Why don't they at least have the squad car lights on?  If my son is injured and frightened I want to get there to be with him. Why are we moving like we're just out for an afternoon drive?

   That five minute drive from the school to the accident at the corner was the longest drive of my life. I had never felt such waves of fear, anxiety, and apprehension. My heart was telling me that it couldn't possibly be true-my son had to be all right-yet my brain was telling me that someone had been involved in that horrible accident. Could it really be my son and his friends? You hear about things like this on the news or read about them in the newspapers. They're not supposed to happen to someone you know. They're not supposed to happen to us. Still, our son and his friends would have had to go through that intersection on their way to the game. What if it were true? No! No! It just couldn't be! Things like that only happen to other people. I asked-begged-God for it not to be true. I was also concerned about my wife getting to the scene before I did. I didn't want her to see and learn the truth by herself. I was torn between never wanting to reach the intersection and wanting to get there as quickly as possible. I probably broke a few traffic laws myself on the way.

It Wasn't My Goldfish That Died-Learning to Live With the Death of My Son

                                                                 Introduction

     I am not a psychologist, nor am I a psychiatrist. I am not a member of the clergy, nor am I a professionally trained grief counselor. I am a father who lost his son. In the aftermath of my son's untimely death in an automobile accident some 11 years ago, I found there to be a shortage of information dealing specifically with what I was going through-grieving the loss of my son. Over these many years, I have experienced so much, some of which I have come to learn is common to all people and all forms of grief, and some of which is limited to the grief we bear as fathers, particularly fathers who have lost a son. My journey of discovery has not been a smooth one. It has been fraught with dangers both real and imagined. It has led me to some amazing heights and often into valleys of incredible despair and hopelessness. What is encouraging, and at the same time frightening, is the realization that my lifelong journey through grief has only begun. It is that trip which I share with you.

   It was then that my wife spoke the words I'd been fearing to hear-words which chilled me to the bone. "A neighbor just called to say there is an accident down at the corner. They think one of the cars might be the one the kids were riding in." I couldn't speak. I couldn't think straight. I had seen what a bad accident that had been. They couldn't possibly have been involved in that crash. I had seen the tarps. Those usually meant that there had been fatalities.. No! It was too horrible to even consider. I felt all the energy draining out of my body, as if I became more exhausted than I'd ever been in my life. How could I have gone right passed the scene and not felt some sense of what was happening? How could I pass so closely to the scene of my son's death and not feel that something was horribly wrong?
   I muttered to my wife about having passed the accident on my way to the school. I could not bring myself  to voice my fears to her. She said she would meet me at the corner. We had to find out what was really going on. I raced to get to the scene before she did. I knew when she saw what had happened, she would begin to sense and fear the truth.

   As I reached the parking lot at the high school, I got the first sinking feeling in my stomach. I ignored it. The parking lot was mostly empty with just a few cars coming and going. That didn't seem right. The game must have ended sooner than I thought it would. I circled around the parking lot, but didn't see my son and his friends in any of the spots where we usually met him. I parked and decided to go over to the gym and see if they were helping to clean up after the game. I didn't see any other people coming out of the gym. I began to get that nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach, but again pushed it aside. My son was a good, responsible kid. Nothing bad could have happened to him. Could it?
   I looked inside the locked doors of the gym. Most of the lights were out, and the only person I saw was one of the school custodians sweeping the gym floor. I turned and looked around the quad area in front of the gym, but didn't see anyone. I walked back to the van becoming more agitated by the second. Still, I thought that there must be some kind of mistake. Maybe the game got moved to another location or the parents who had driven the kids to the game already picked them up and they'd all gone to get something to eat after the game. There had to be another explanation. I didn't let my mind go to where I feared the answer might be.
   Upon reaching the van I called home on my cellphone. My wife answered. I told her the kids were nowhere to be found at the high school. Had she heard from Curtis yet? She responded that she had not heard from our son. I tried to keep my voice calm, but I was feeling increasingly agitated. Where was our son? Why hadn't he checked in with us like he always did? That accident I had passed by earlier...no, it couldn't be. Could it? Bad things like that don't happen to good people like us...do they?

   I had been studying for a couple of hours when I realized that it was just about time for the basketball game to be over. Since Curtis hadn't called yet I decided to drive the short distance to the high school and give the kids a ride home. As I got into our van and pulled out of the driveway, I still had no sense that anything was out of the ordinary. I wondered later how it was possible that such a life-changing event could happen without me somehow sensing it. Even as I passed the scene of the accident on my way to the school, no alarms went off in my head. I came upon the accident at the intersection less than five minutes from our house. As I slowed to go through the intersection I thought,"Oh man. This must have been a really bad accident. How is it possible that we didn't hear any sirens or anything?"There were still several emergency vehicles present as well as the cars that had been involved in the collision. They had obviously sustained a great deal of damage and were resting on opposite sides of the street. One of them was partially hidden by a tow truck. I could also see an emergency worker folding up a tarp-the kind they use to cover the bodies of victims at accident scenes. Still, it never occurred to me that my son and his friends could possibly have been involved. I don't think my mind wanted to even consider that possibility. I mumbled a quick prayer for those who were involved and continued on my way to the school where my son and his friends were enjoying the basketball game. Weren't they?