You were a surprise baby born on Christmas Eve--two months premature. My first memory of you is your mother bringing bags of milk to Grandma's fridge that she would freeze until she could take them to the NICU. I remember the picture your dad brought home: Your hand was holding his thumb, your tiny fingers couldn't wrap all the way around . Your arm was smaller then my Uncle Roy's finger. You reminded me of a baby bird, complete with veiny eyelids and the torso of a chicken.
You were my first paid babysitting job. If I close my eyes I can see a portrait of your tiny face red from screaming. I vividly recall slipping a bottle between your wailing lips, and the way your right eye would wink while you sucked. I remember you as a tiny boy who wouldn't drink milk, but you would drink "moo-juice". Water wasn't on your list of beverages, but 'sky water' could be slipped to you. I remember you as five with your bowl hair cut, and the way your bottom lip would quiver when your mother left. I remember the day you were a sixth grader whom I took for a ride in my TransAm--and I remember that you believed me when I pointed at the tachometer and declared, "We are going 120 miles an hour!"
Time passed, and while I wasn't looking, you grew into a man. And you got married. And you had a child, a baby girl that I held in my arms. When I slipped the bottle past her wailing lips, I saw your tiny eyes looking back at me.
In the past few years I have begun to appreciate you as an adult. You helped us move--you grabbed an end of the freezer that was full of rotting mystery meat and you saved me the misery. There was the day that Martin was gone and I called you and asked you to fix my window--and you came right over and did that for me. When I was lonely, you came to my house and allowed me to feed you shake and bake chicken. You babysat my children so that I could go to school--and there was the winter that I was pregnant and you brought me wood for my fireplace. Over the life-span of our relationship when I have needed your help you always arrived. What I am trying to say is: I love ya man. Our relationship has changed from the days when you needed me to lift you out of your crib. You became a man whom I could depend on.
Friday night when you dropped Isabelle off at my house you looked so handsome, and you smelled like five dollars worth of expensive cologne. I was only kidding when I asked you to wait for a few minutes and I would change clothes so I could go with you. I wasn't kidding when I said, "Be careful, wear your seat belt." Maybe I said that to you more often then I should had, but I had that dream that you died in a car accident, and every time you left my house I thought of it. I know I told you about the dream because you have mocked me about it ever since. Do you remember the night I hugged you and told you how proud I was of you and that I wanted you to take better care of yourself because you were so important to so many people? You laughed at me that night, you thought I was having a corona moment. You didn't want to hear about my dreams and my proclamations of love and respect.
I started crying for you at 4:10am Saturday when I found out that you had been crushed beneath a car. I stopped crying at 6:30am when Isabelle woke up. Martin and I spent the day crying in the bathroom and pretending to be just fine in front of your daughter. We knew it wasn't our place to tell her that her daddy had died, we figured that she didn't need to know so early in the morning that her entire life had irrevocably changed.
Saturday evening Martin and I met your parents at the mortuary. Did you know that when your mother's heart has broken she audibly sobs? I have seen her at many funerals, many times I have watched tears dribble down her cheeks. I wish I had never found out what it sounds like when the fabric of your mother's life has been destroyed. Your dad is in a fog. He cries without realizing there are tears on his cheeks. He doesn't speak very much, and I think it is because he is holding his breath.
Did you know that when someone is loved as much as you were that everyone affected by your death has to remind themselves to breath? We hold our breath believing that if we can control our breath, we can control our tears. It doesn't work of course, it only causes migraine. Everyone who loved you is physically hurting. We all feel the pain of your loss in our heads, our hearts, our stomachs.
When I saw you lying on the mortician's slab I thought that seeing the affects of being trapped underneath of a car would cause uncontainable sobbing. I looked at your permanently sealed lips and eyes, I scanned the areas of your face where the skin was damaged and torn, I wondered what the rest of your body looked like beneath the sheet. Instead of bursting into tears I felt a rush of anger. I was so pissed at you.
Why didn't you wear your seat belt?
Oh, wow. I...don't know what to say. I am sorry for your loss, Deborah. I am so sorry. For you, for his parents, and daughter.
Posted by: Jill | 01/22/2007 at 12:14 AM
Deborah, I am so sorry for your loss. My thoughts are with you and his family.
Posted by: Virginia | 01/22/2007 at 05:55 AM
Oh Deborah I am so sorry. I'm thinking of you and your family.
Posted by: Laura | 01/22/2007 at 09:19 AM
I am so sorry.
Posted by: Shrinkingmom | 01/22/2007 at 10:51 AM
Oh, Deborah. I am so sorry for your heartache and loss. Your eloquence at the beginning of the blog, I thought, was going to end with a funny tale or uplifting moment. I'm so sorry for you that it had to end with such a tragic desperate sadness. When will we learn we are not immortal--when the people we love go before their time. I will be praying for you and his family.
Posted by: JenniferB | 01/22/2007 at 11:29 AM
I had forgotten about his eye, it would pulse with each suck/swallow from his bottle...thanks for helping to remember something so precious. I wish now that I would have known him the way you did, I really didn't spend too much time with him over the past several years, just his younger days. My heart breaks for Roy, Carol and Danny... a death so tragic, so unexpected, so seemingly impossible to overcome. I keep praying for God's peace to fill all those torn emotionaly - God is faithful, he is aware of the pain and will carry us through until the beautiful day when we will see each other again.
Until that day, we dare not forget... it's all good...
amen, and amen.
Posted by: kim | 01/22/2007 at 01:46 PM
I am so sorry. Thoughts and prayers go out to you.
Posted by: NG | 01/22/2007 at 02:36 PM
Thoughts and prayers go out to you and your family. I am so sorry for your loss.
Posted by: Samantha | 01/22/2007 at 03:18 PM
As I read the beginning, I was thinking, "Please don't tell me he died. Please don't say that he died." And as I read further that feeling just intensified.
I'm so, so sorry. What a tragedy. You will all be in my prayers, Deborah.
Posted by: buffi | 01/22/2007 at 10:00 PM
Oh, sweetie.
Sending out big hugs and prayers for you and his family while I'm wiping away my tears.
Posted by: Missie | 01/23/2007 at 10:43 AM
That was heartwrenching. I'm so sorry.
Posted by: Karen | 01/24/2007 at 04:28 AM
I am so sorry. Love to you and the rest of Jeffs loved ones.
Posted by: terri | 01/28/2007 at 03:55 AM
I just lost someone very important to me, and your words really touched me. I'm so teary eyed right now. I'm so sorry for your loss. The part about the audible sob is so true.
My sister never wears her seatbelt. I'm going to make her read this.
Posted by: nila | 01/30/2007 at 11:51 PM