ResQgeek

Today is the first anniversary of the tragic accident that took the life of my younger daughter, and forever altered my world. It began as a normal Monday at the end of summer. The girls were enjoying their last week of vacation before school started back up and making plans for the new school year. My older daughter had a friend over for the afternoon, and soon after I got home from work, they decided to head over to the friend’s house for supper. My wife started to take a shower, since she was scheduled to work that night, and I sat back to relax, since it didn’t look like I was going to need to cook dinner.

Then the phone rang, and our lives changed forever. I didn’t rush for the phone, since it is only rarely for me anyway, and my wife had just finished her shower. Seconds after she picked up the phone, she shouted at me that one of the girls had been hit by a car. I put on my shoes and grabbed the keys to the car, while my wife threw on some clothes, and we headed out, following the path they had taken on their bicycles. It didn’t take us very long to find them. We turned the corner at the end of the street, and then had to pull over to let the responding ambulance and fire engine go by. After going around a small bend in the road, the street was blocked with stopped cars. My wife jumped out of the car and ran ahead, while I tried to find a place I could safely pull off the road and park.

By the time I reached the scene of the accident, the paramedics were hard at work on my younger daughter. My older daughter was completely hysterical, so I went to her to try and calm her down. The paramedics made the decision to transport our daughter to the local trauma center by helicopter. We would have to drive there, and we expected that we would likely be there for a long time while they treated our daughter. My older daughter didn’t want to go with us to the hospital, so we made arrangements for a family that lived by the scene to secure her bicycle in their garage and to take her to a friend’s house. As soon as the helicopter took off, we walked back to the car and started towards the hospital.

My wife called in to her work to let them know she probably would not be coming in that night. As we drove to the hospital, we discussed the implications of the long term care and recovery issues we thought we would be dealing with in the coming weeks and months. It was only when we arrived at the hospital, and the receptionist asked us to wait for the hospital social worker that my wife realized that this was not going to be the case. She immediately understood that this was the hospital protocol for notifying the families of the ultimate bad news. The social worker took us back to a small lounge and broke the terrible news to us a gently as he could.

From that point, things become a blur—phone calls to my parents and my in-laws, breaking the news to our remaining daughter, people coming to the house. Over the next week, life seemed to come to a halt as we grappled to come to terms with our altered reality. Even though the weather hadn’t changed, in my memory, the season changed that day, from summer to autumn, in a single instant. There are so many images from the following week that float through my mind, along with a recollection of the tremendous emotional weight of all the decisions that had to be made and the things that needed to be done.

Somehow we got through it all, and now, a year later, we are still slowly coming to terms with our tragedy. While things will never be the same again, each day is a tiny bit better than the one before. The support of our family, community and friends, both near and far, has been a tremendous help. We continue to be amazed by the stories and memories people share with us. The number of lives our daughter touched in her short time is nothing sort of astounding. These are the things we hold on to, and we try to honor her memory be remembering all the happiness and joy she brought to the people she met. Our lives have been placed on a different path, one that we certainly wouldn’t have chosen, and our journey along it has only just begun.

I've been recruiting help from my Facebook friends, but maybe there are readers here who are on Facebook but not on my friends list.

My wife entered a picture of our daughter Becky (who was killed last summer at age 9) in a photo contest sponsored by Michaels (the arts & crafts store).  She'd like the picture of Becky to win as a tribute to her memory.  Our picture is currently in second place (to a photo of a cat!), but we can't seem to gain any ground on first place.  If you have a Facebook account, you can vote for our picture here: http://apps.facebook.com/michaels-mothersday/entries/150  (Just so you know it's the correct picture, it is our daughter at about age 2, holding an Easter egg--the photo is labeled "Sandy J." from Alexandria, VA).  You can vote once per day through May 7, and we're going to need a lot of people voting every day if we're going to catch up to the leader (I can't figure out who's voting for that cat).

Thank you!

As I mentioned yesterday, the response to our tragedy has been overwhelming. Perhaps the most stunning example (to us anyway), was the envelope that arrived last week from Richmond, VA. The return address indicated that it had come from "The Office of the Governor". I expected it to include a note typed by a secretary and most likely signed by auto-pen. Imagine how stunned I was to open the envelope to find a handwritten note from Bob McDonnell, the current Governor of Virginia. That he was moved to take time from his busy schedule to pen a personal note to us was deeply touching, and is a powerful indicator of how widespread the impact of our loss is being felt.