Our Tragedy At Christmas

I’ve been putting this off for years. Still to this day, a lump forms in the back of my throat when I begin to think about the events that took place that December night in 2009. There have been other times that I’ve begun to write about this event, and then I stopped because I didn’t want to misrepresent or dishonor my Mother-in-law’s memory.

Flashback to Thanksgiving Day 2009, if there were any premonitions that this would be the last time we would see her, I’m sure we would have clung on and never let go, begging for time to stand still and for December 7th never to occur. We had spent the day together with Deb, my Mother-in-law, Rick, my Father-in-law, and Helen, Rick’s mother. It had been a nice visit, not unlike other holidays spent in their company. All the dogs were there too, and we had eaten our fill of Turkey and all the fixings. Our visit post meal time was brief and then everyone wrapped in coats began to depart our home for their journey back. Brief hugs were exchanged. Looking back at that moment now, I’m sure we probably would have savored that time a little longer, cherished that conversation a little deeper, and expressed our love and gratitude a little more eloquently… but that’s how life is sometimes, each moment is brief and then it’s gone. Two weeks later, all hell broke loose; the ground under our feet might as well have crumbled away along with it.

I was driving that night when I got a panicked phone call from Donna or Diane …still to this day I can’t recall who it was, because of the shockwaves that transpired from that conversation left me numb, and specific streets I was driving down and the exact words in the conversation are blurry. At first all I understood was, “its Deb, she’s not breathing”…automatically I thought it was another Deb, one of our employees Deb, who someone was calling about. Perhaps even then, my brain was trying to save us from hearing it correctly, protecting us like a sentinel in the midst of danger. Then everything came crashing down, when I finally grasped at what was being said. Deb. Accident. Not breathing. My heart sunk in my chest, I literally started breathing rapidly and with every exhale came a three word prayer, over and over and over again…”Oh God Help, Oh God Help…” There was a passenger in the van who had been fairly talkative until I received that phone call, my demeanor must have changed in the midst of the phone conversation because as soon as I ended the call he went silent next to me. The drive to this person’s apartment was only a matter of minutes, but it seemed like hours because I understood where I had to go next – home. My wife didn’t know yet that her mother had been in a horrible accident. She had no clue what message I had to convey, and I was about to bring the worst possible news through our doorway and into her life. I was sick to my stomach, as tears were rolling down my face and I was praying as I continued to accelerate through neighborhoods and stop signs, trying to get home. My face must have read the anguish of the words that I wasn’t sure how to speak, because when I walked through the front door and up the steps into the living room, she knew.

It is still very painful to recall those moments even three years later. There’s nothing more heart wrenching than the cries of mourning, the tears of loss, yet on that night in 2009 these were the notes to an orchestra of sadness, where each of us were unwilling performers hurtled toward the stage of deep and utter loss. Huddled in that small living room we wept, we moaned unutterable notes in anguish. A few moments later the police were at our door, Rick had called them because he, at first he couldn’t reach us, he couldn’t speak because this news was too much to bear over a phone line. My wife answered the door and as she recalls now even the police officer was an unwilling messenger, a page in a book of pain, an unscripted unwilling volunteer in this unfortunate event. The news was not good. We didn’t have any further updates at that time, only the earlier phone call status: not breathing. We hoped, we prayed…yet our optimism balanced precariously on that jagged cliff of utter and total despair and uncertainty.

I went off into our twin toddler’s room to pack clothing, diapers and any other items we would need for this late night drive to Traverse City Michigan, which was roughly three hours away from our home. Still to this day, something happened in that room that I cannot explain and I have been hesitant to mention it to many people because I’m a skeptical person myself. I am not a mumbo jumbo, supernatural investigator type of guy…but as I was packing their clothes something happened. It wasn’t a voice exactly, but I knew that Deb was trying to say something to us. Shanais, my wife, was far too distraught at the time, but in that nursery of our home, I recall hearing “Tell Shanais that I’m ok, It’s ok”. After hearing something like that, what do you do? There’s no handbook to guide you through an experience like that. I remember saying; “I will tell her” and I finished packing our kids up for this emergency trip. We were in and out of our house, poorly packed and in the van in less than twenty minutes and on the road, panic stricken and hearts as heavy as falling boulders of stone.

Forty five minutes in heavy snow we found ourselves on the Mackinaw bridge heading south when we got another phone call, this time Diane calling us to let us know that Deb was gone…she didn’t make it.

What began as a cautiously optimistic drive south turned into our worst fears as desperation and grief washed away our resolve. I recall making a couple of phone calls, one to my uncle and aunt in Grand Rapids MI, they could help me contact The Salvation Army Officer in Traverse City so that he could go and be with Rick at the hospital…he was all alone. The second phone call I made was to a number in Africa where my mother and father could be reached, and as my Dad answered with a sleep weary voice, I wept and shared the horrible news, he wept too and I’m sure calling him in the middle of the night thousands of miles away didn’t make him feel at all useful or close at hand to help…but I needed to hear their voices and we needed all the prayers of support that we could get. That long journey to Traverse City on that cold wintry night was unplanned, involuntary and bitter. Looking back on it now, memories of that fateful night’s journey still fills me with distain and sorrow. A part of me still feels shorted for both my wife and our children, to have their grandmother and mother taken away without warning…so young, so unfair…

Later we learned that Deb’s actions were so consistent with her personality. Deb, was a very giving person, ask her family, ask my kids. That night Deb and Rick stopped to help a couple people who had just been involved in a severe automobile accident. Amidst broken glass, shatter bones and crumpled metallic frames of vehicles, they rushed to help the hurting victims on the side of the road. Deb was in the ditch when it happened. The roads were extremely icy, and cars were not driving safe speeds for those cold frosty conditions. One car in particular, with a young man behind the wheel, lost control, sped around the crash and struck Deb. She was pinned under this vehicle because she had been trying to help one of the injured passengers of the other vehicle. She died right there on the scene, giving to others as she always did in her life.

We had always prayed that Deb would one day have a personal relationship with Jesus, and there had always been a fear that she would never accept such an idea because of the life that she had experienced growing up. But she had been to church with us from time to time, she had taken the opportunity to hear Shanais, her daughter, preach…but such a thing was far too personal for Deb to share with anyone. Yet that night and for days after we had always wondered where she stood with the Lord…until I remembered what had taken place in the nursery of our home while packing clothes for the unwanted journey. “Tell Shanais that I’m ok, It’s ok”…began to all make sense…hopelessness was replaced with hopefulness even in the midst of such a horrific tragedy. We believe with certainty that Deb’s message to us was real, perhaps a final goodbye, but also a chance to say, “I’m in His arms…it’s ok, I’m alright”…in reality it was a comfort to know that our goodbye was more of a “see you later”.

Hug those you love, share with them your salvation story when you can…and cherish the moments you have with them. One other thing, give what you can to others…Deb did even at the end of her life she was giving

(Taken On Thanksgiving Day 2009)