07/26/2013

   Monday was a national holiday-President's Day. It would have probably passed without notice since none of us had plans to go much of anywhere anyway, nor were we in much of a festive mood, obviously. It did mean, however, that since there was no school, two of my colleagues arrived at our door early in the morning bearing gifts. These two men were especially welcome, not so much for the items and messages they brought from people at my school, but because of what they themselves were able to do for us. One of them had worked for years as a police officer before going into teaching as a second career. We had already tried that morning to get information about the accident from our local police department. (I honestly don't remember exactly what we were trying to find out about, but it was important to us at the time.) We had been told that the police could not divulge that kind of information. I was feeling very frustrated. Most of the people we had had to deal with in the last few days had been extremely supportive, understanding, and helpful. Why did I feel like our local police department was always jerking us around?  Anyway, even though my friend had not worked for our local police department, he was able to get them to extend him some professional courtesy and get the information we requested. (It only took him about five minutes on the phone. Why couldn't they have just told us what we wanted to know?) My other teaching friend brought his own golden gift to us. He and his wife had lost their young son in a drowning accident several months prior to Curtis's death. He knew exactly what we going through and how we were feeling, although his son was much younger when he died than was Curtis. It helped us (as we were later often called upon to help others experiencing the death of a child) to see that it is possible, somehow, to survive a tragedy of this magnitude. My friend and his wife were still together, still breathing, still moving through life. This now meant that we directly knew five people who were bereaved parents who had found a way to go on with their lives: my mom, my friend and his wife, my wife's cousin and her husband. That gave us some hope that maybe we would manage to get through it somehow, as well. It meant so much to me that these two friends took so much time on their day off work to support and comfort us. It's never been forgotten. The rest of that day is hazy in my memory. I do remember that by this time most of our family from out of state had arrived. My brother and his wife and my sister and her partner. It was wonderful to have them with us, but at this point, I was realizing that nothing and no one could grant me the solace I most needed and wanted. I wanted and needed this nightmare to stop. I wanted and needed my son to come home.