Before bed last night, my son and I talked about several dads who lost their lives yesterday in a terribly public and tragic way. We talked about grieving for multiple family members lost in one terrible moment. We talked about what the friends and families are facing now: their confusion, their sorrow, their regrets. And we talked about their grief continuing long after everyone else has moved on.
When I was 7, my family moved into a new housing development. My sister and I spent hours playing in the new construction sites: climbing through unfinished walls, scavenging nails and bits of discarded wood, and generally endangering our safety on the regular. We also spent many unsupervised hours playing in a nearby stream (until the housing development closed off access to the stream to our bitter disappointment).
Eventually, the first round of houses was finished and sold, mostly to families with young children. My mom, always looking for ways to get us out of her hair AND keep us out of trouble, enrolled us in a babysitting safety class at our local Y. We learned CPR and basic wound care, how to change diapers and carry babies safely, strategies to manage young children, etc.
I was 11 years old when we graduated and started a babysitting business. Our very creative mom helped us make flyers advertising our services ($0.75/hour!). Then, my sister and I went around the whole neighborhood, knocking on doors, introducing ourselves to the adults there and leaving copies of our flyers. We even talked to the families without children, reasoning that some of them might occasionally have visitors and need a sitter.
Over time, we developed a robust client list — Jimmy (aka James, as I discovered when I presented an interviewing skills program to his high school classroom years later), Brian, Stevie, Ryan, Ricky, Betsy, Sally, and many others. I remember years of Saturday nights on a sofa until 2AM waiting for parents to return home and pulling wagon-loads of kids around the neighborhood while they giggled and helping two-year olds brush their teeth before bed and making pasta (with butter because Stevie didn’t like sauce) or pb&j sammies. I remember Ricky P and his broken left arm — it was already broken when I got there but the parents had a party to go to. I remember tickle sessions with Ryan. I remember comforting Betsy who thought her dad didn’t love her. I remember driving Stevie and his brothers to egg hunts near Easter and listening to Stevie trying to read every word on every sign we passed along the way.
In my memory, those 40+ year olds are still wee children who loved popsicles and bike races. And my mom is still sitting quietly in our family room waiting for the headlights to shine through the front window and for the sound of my key inserted in the front door lock. All bundled in her robe and slippers, she’d meet me in the hallway to praise the wad of cash in my hand and listen to whatever story I had to tell.
When I was in grad school, Doug, one of my “kids,” was killed in a car accident, along with two or three of his friends. When he was little, folks in the neighborhood used to joke — a macabre foreshadowing — that he wouldn’t survive to adulthood. He was constantly getting into near-catastrophes — falling off ladders, electrocuting himself, getting lost, pretty much a field guide of ways to nearly die in your youth.
Among them, I can remember two with particular clarity. First, when he was 4, Dougie pedaled his Big Wheel into the street directly in front of an oncoming paneled station wagon whose quick-thinking driver swerved into the neighbor’s tree, while Dougie continued, completely unaware of his near-death experience, cluelessly pedaling down the road. I saw the whole thing in slow-motion horror from our front yard and my stomach still clenches when I think of it.
The second incident occurred when he was a young teenager. He was riding his 10-speed (that’s how OLD I am!) and, having learned NOTHING about safety in the intervening years, turned across the road in front of a car. My sister and I were, surprisingly, both home at the time. We heard the squealing tires and ran outside to see what had happened. I can remember, like a snapshot, that I was in my white dress shirt and black pants, about to leave for work at the local country club where I was a server.
My sister, who was a nursing student, ran to Dougie’s aid while I directed traffic. The worst part, for me, is the memory of his mom’s car coming down the road. She knew, before she could know in that pre-cell phone era, that it was him. I remember her abandoning her car in the middle of the road and running toward me. “He’s okay, Mrs Dougie,” I said (or words to that effect). “His leg is broken but he’s alive.” She started crying and grabbed my arm for a moment, then ran to him as the ambulance pulled up. To this day, I can’t remember what happened with her car, idling there on the street in front of our house. Did she drive it to the hospital or ride in the ambulance? Did I move it for her? I have absolutely no idea.
I only know about Dougie’s death because his family still lived next door when he was killed. I don’t think I’ll ever Google my other kids. It’s much better to remember them as imps in the sun.
Telling you to hug your family today is cliched. Hug your family — however you define that — every chance you get, people. You don’t really need a loss to remind you that the people who love you are precious and few.
Wishing you a February that is much less disappointing than this hideous January has been.
