09/21/2013

   I had made the decision that I would go back to work the day after what would have been Curtis's 15th birthday. That would be three weeks to the day since the accident. I would only have to teach for two days that week. That would allow me to ease back into my classroom routine. Would anything ever seem routine again?  Before I had to face that day, we had decided that we wanted to mark our son's birthday by sharing two of his favorite foods, pizza and cheesecake, with the students in the high school band who had been so supportive of us. We got permission from the band director and showed up at the school during the band students' lunch period. It felt so good to be able to share this time with all of those young people who had shown strength and compassion beyond their years. It felt good, that is, while we were with the students, but afterwards, as we cleaned up to head back home, that now all too familiar feeling of emptiness came back. This was all well and good, to try to find ways to honor and remember our son, but what I really still wished was that none of it was necessary. I still wanted my son back. In the coming days, we would find many ways to memorialize Curtis, most of which are still ongoing today, but there's always that nagging thought in the back of my mind, "Why did this have to happen?"

09/15/2013

   As I said before, the days during this second week without my son all blurred together. All the terrible things we'd endured during that turbulent first week are indelibly burned into my memory, but once we got through all that, things become hazy in my mind. As I search my memory of those days now to try to make some kind of coherent chronology for this blog, I find it impossible to do. At the time, several people had suggested that I journal about what was happening to us so there would be some kind of record of all that we were going through in case we needed to recall things later. There was absolutely no way I was in any shape emotionally to do such a thing, nor did I have any interest in doing so. I was having enough trouble trying to breathe in and out and put one foot in front of the other to take care of all the things that had to be done. There was no energy left to write about something I was pretty sure I was going to try very hard to forget had ever happened at all. I do know that some things were already in motion to help us deal with the legal issues we would be facing in trying to ensure that the man responsible received some kind of punishment. We had dozens of thank you notes to get out to all the people who had been so wonderfully supportive of us since that night of February 15, 2001. We needed to seek out counseling services for ourselves and our surviving children to help us begin to somehow deal with this new reality we were suddenly facing in the present and the now uncertain and frightening future. I had to begin thinking about when, if, or how I would ever be able to go back to teaching at my school where Curtis had once been a student and where I would see memories of his days there all around me. I had to begin the process of learning how or if I would be able to adapt to the most horrible change in my life I'd ever faced. Mostly, though, we had already begun thinking about ways that we could turn this tragedy into something positive-ways to bring forth some kind of good out of all this heartbreak. Curtis had always loved life and lived his to the fullest. He was a positive, joyful, loving person who always tried to see the good in other people and situations. He would want us to somehow find ways to turn the anger, grief, and loss we were feeling into something that would help others and honor his memory. That would bring a smile to his face. Curtis's 15th birthday would have been just short of three weeks to the day after his death. We decided that, although it would not be a huge, breaking news story, we would use that day to start down the path of finding ways to honor our son's memory.

09/07/2013

   Based on what had happened to us on the night of the accident, when our local police had treated my wife and I to quite a run-around regarding what had actually happened to our son, and the difficulty we'd had getting a response from the same department when we inquired about getting a copy of the police report of the accident, we had no illusions about what we might expect to happen to the man who had caused the accident. Our neighbor, the police officer I spoke of previously, had tried to prepare us for the realities of our situation. I really don't remember very many details about all the months of legal issues, but I do remember that early-on in the process, the deputy district attorney assigned to the case arranged a meeting so all the families could meet with him and the police officers in charge of the case. All I remember from that meeting was when the lead officer from our local police department stated early in the meeting that according to the law we should not expect the man to get much in the way of penalties and besides, everyone runs red lights at some point in their life. I was incensed! How dare he minimize the losses of our three children? I fully understand police officers, by necessity, sometimes become desensitized to what an ordinary family in the midst of suffering is going through, but I felt then, and I still feel now, that he had no right to expect us to accept those words from his mouth. After hearing those comments I don't even remember what else happened at that meeting. Later, the deputy district attorney tried to soothe our anger and hurt feelings, but it was too late. From that day forward, I still hoped that justice would be served, but I no longer expected that to be the case.
Apparently, a man can drive carelessly through a red light intersection, traveling in excess of 60 miles per hour, be the direct cause of an accident that kills three teenagers and puts two adults into the hospital, changing the lives of their families and friends forever, and because he was not drunk or under the influence of drugs it's really not that big of a deal in the eyes of the law. We were told that under the circumstances, the best we could hope for would be one year of jail time for each of the deaths of our three children (that was the maximum penalty allowed under the law in these situations.) As things turned out, we would have to fight tooth and nail for the man to get that much. I couldn't help wondering if we would be in the same situation if we (or our children) were more rich, powerful, or famous.

09/02/13

   Unlike the first week of our grief journey with its daily milestones and all the things that demanded out time and attention, the days of the second full week without our Curtis all sort of blended together.
I was still off work, with no real thought of when or how or even if I would be able to go back. Casey  went back to school, although I wasn't sure how he managed to do that. I think it was easier for him to get back to a routine of sorts, back to some sense of normalcy, where he could be with his friends and get away from us and our house which was filled with so much sadness. I never really appreciated how difficult that must have been for him until much later, when some of my own anger, pain, and sorrow had somewhat diminished. I developed a new level of respect for my surviving son, especially at his being able to go back to the same school, classes, and activities of which Curtis had been a part. That must have been extremely difficult for him. Since my daughter went to school with my wife, and they were both still offtrack, it was just the three of us at home now. After we somehow survived those horrible first 10 days or so following the accident, it became much more difficult for me to pinpoint exactly when and in what order events unfolded. I can remember a lot of different things that happened to us over the next several months, but they seemed to blur together with no clearly defined edges to them. I think my mind, my emotions, and my soul had all been so overloaded during those first unthinkable days that they were in shut-down mode. It was quickly becoming apparent that all of this was beyond our ability to deal with using standard methods of coping. We would need to get help-help for myself and my wife as individuals, as a couple and as parents, and help for our children to get through this terrible ordeal. Nothing any of us had ever experienced before had prepared us for what we were now facing. For parents, the fear of losing a child is so overpowering that until it actually happens no parent wants to even consider such a thing is possible. When the unthinkable does happen, parents are completely blindsided as their orderly world comes crashing down around them. For our surviving son and daughter, finding ways to deal with all that had happened would take time and energy. Casey was older than Curtis by only 13 and one-half months, so he never remembered a time in his life without his brother. Carly, being the youngest, had always had two older brothers. For several years now, my wife and I had been the parents of three children. All those facts had now changed. Two  things would come to dominate our lives over the next several months: seeking professional help for all of us, and dealing with the American legal system. Fortunately for our family, the former would prove to be many times more successful, and ultimately, much less frustrating than the latter.

08/30/2013

   In some respects, the second Sunday of our new life without Curtis would prove to be one of the most challenging days yet. My mom and stepdad were up early. They would be going back home, so they could attend church that morning. For my mom, she needed to be back in worship surrounded by her longtime friends, many of whom were our friends as well from our years at the same church. For me, however, I was just beginning to sense a growing awareness of something very negative deep within me. This would be the first day since the accident that I would have time to ponder such things.

After my mom and stepdad left, I found myself alone downstairs in our house. There hadn't been many of these moments of isolation in recent days. In truth, I had been afraid to be alone, forced to ponder the unthinkable.  Everyone had gone home. I don't remember where my wife, son, or daughter were, but I distinctly remember an overwhelming feeling of utter aloneness enveloping me. I had never before felt such a complete sense of loneliness in my life. What now? All the hustle and bustle was over. All the things that had seemed so absolutely necessary were done. The people had all gone home, the flowers were beginning to wilt, the food beginning to spoil, the plants, cards, notes, letters, tributes, posters, stuffed animals, candles only serving as reminders of the horrible truth. The services all done, the children all buried side by side in the cemetery, together forever.  None of that had been able to return my son to me. I felt more lost and alone than ever before. How was I supposed to go on from all this?

What was the point? I suddenly had to acknowledge that the negative feeling that seemed to be growing stronger by the second was an overwhelming sense of betrayal. I felt forsaken by a God I'd prayed to on the very morning of the accident for divine protection over my family. Had He not heard or didn't He even care? These first moments of despair and doubt would linger to one degree or another

for several years before I would be able to come to grips with them. On this Sunday, however, what shook me out of my depression was gazing at photographs on our living room wall. They were photos of our children over the years. There wasn't much different about them from the types of pictures many families proudly display in their homes, and I'd certainly seen all of these photos before, but this time I seemed to be seeing them for the first time. As I stared at them, I looked into my children's beautiful, trusting eyes, and I realized that somehow, someway, I needed to find the strength to go on. I had to find ways to not just survive for myself, but for my wife, for my surviving son and daughter, and, yes, for Curtis himself. How could I let them down by falling apart? How could I let down all of our family, friends, neighbors, and even strangers who had been so supportive? On that afternoon, I felt like I was in the center of a black hole of grief where no light would ever again penetrate. What I had failed to realize was that it was only my perception of reality that was cloaked in darkness. I was so deeply grieving and in such tremendous pain that I hadn't acknowledged that the true reality was that we were bathed in the love and light of all those supportive people, and had been since the very moment of the accident. In time, we had to find ways to get through this ordeal (you don't get over it, as some people seem to think you should do after enough time goes by, however long that may be, but you do learn to live with a new reality) as a family. If we could not get through it together, how could we possibly hope to do so as isolated individuals? I didn't fully comprehend it at the time, but  that rainy, gloomy Sunday afternoon would mark a turning point in my journey. 

08/26/2013

   This second Saturday of our life without our son seemed to be something of a transition day. It was one of the first days since Curtis's death where we had no business to attend to. More of our house guests would be leaving. I had certainly appreciated all the love and support we had received in the last several days, the memories of which would help sustain me in the long, bleak days ahead, but by this day, I was definitely feeling in need of some space to begin dealing with all we had endured. At the same time, I was also fearful of what I might feel when I slowed down long enough to really think about what the future now held for us. One of our neighbors who was a police officer (not with our local police department) apparently felt it was important to meet with us all. He wanted to try to tell us from his experiences as a police officer what we might be facing when it came time to try to get justice for our children regarding the man who had caused the accident. We believed (naively, as we discovered) that when a man kills three children, intentionally or not, that there would be some kind of suitable penalty involved. Our neighbor tried to explain to us that this might not be the case. I had to give our neighbor credit. He knew that what he was saying would not sit well with any of us, but out of concern for all we'd already gone through, he wanted us to be prepared as we began our journey through the legal system. After all, he had years more experience in this area than any of the rest of us. Up to this point, I hadn't had much time or energy to even think about the man who had caused the accident. The only thing I'd done at one point during that terrible first week was get in my car, drive to his house, park in front and wait for him to appear. To this day, I don't really know what I was thinking except to say that I just wanted to see what someone who killed three children looked like. After a few minutes of waiting,  a car pulled into the driveway, and the man I assumed was responsible for Curtis's death got out of the passenger side of the car. In spite of my fragile emotional state, or perhaps even because of it, I just sat frozen in my seat. I didn't even have the energy to confront him. I would get a chance to do that many months later in the courtroom. Common sense prevailed even at this emotionally precarious moment in my life. I really didn't want to do anything that would add further trauma to my wife and children. (I would not even tell my wife about this incident until much later.) Besides, at that time I had yet to hear the my neighbor's discouraging words. I still thought then that
surely the legal system would provide us with justice. Wrong again.

08/24/2013

   I know I keep saying that I don't remember much about certain aspects of that most horrible week of my life, but in this case I really don't remember much about the final funeral. That's not to imply that it wasn't important to me or that I'm downplaying the significance of the young girl's life and death. It was just that we had been through so much. Three funerals on three consecutive days at three different churches. Trips to the same cemetery on three consecutive days to bury our children.Viewing services. All the business arrangements that had been necessary. The emotional roller coaster ride we'd been on for days. Out of town guests, visitors, calls, mail, flowers. Could all this have really taken place across a span of only eight days? Could it really have been only a little over a week since the accident that stole our son away from us? With everything we'd had to deal with, I felt at least a hundred years older. I know I was physically present at the last of the funeral services. I remember at the time feeling that it was a beautiful way to celebrate and say goodbye to Curtis's friend, but if I was forced to try to recall any specific details, I would be hard-pressed to do so. I don't think I had any more room in my heart, mind or soul for any more emotions. I had spent so much energy in trying to cope with my son's death and all that that meant, I had nothing left at that time for anyone or anything else. I do remember feeling a little guilty that I wasn't fully present during the service. I felt like I was on automatic pilot. With the completion of this final funeral, and the last burial service at the cemetery, I'm sure many people probably thought that our hellish week was over. In fact, several people made comments to us to that effect. It was true that the week of funerals and burials was indeed now complete, but I don't think even we fully yet realized at the time a very horrible truth-our real hell was just beginning.