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?