Pieces or "That Day"

Back around Christmas I was talking to my Dad and mentioned something that happened in a story I had written. For this little website. I didn't think my Dad knew about this little website. Apparently he did because he was curious about why I'd spend my time writing about these old stories from the past.

I really didn't have an answer. I've asked myself the same question a thousand times and have never found an answer.

I think the story I'm about to write may contain the answer.

Generally I write about people, places & things that meant something to me and generally something that was experienced by others as well.

For me, I know I like to write things to remember. But what's the point? I have my memories. I don't need to write them down or share them. But I do.

One the one hand I think it may be just that I like to share my take on life's experiences. Many of which are kind of universal, some kind of unique. We all have them. Maybe reading my memories & idea's makes somebody remember theirs? Maybe somebody who was directly involved in my experiences have their stories and they like to remember but just don't feel comfortable writing or talking about things.

I really have no idea, but there were a lot of people involved in this story who still live with it everyday. Especially today.

Five years ago tonight my sister Toni lost her fight to recover from injuries she received in a very serious car accident five days prior. An accident that also took the life of her friend and co-worker Karen.

The accident also took pieces of the lives of countless others.

Not just Toni's family & friends and children and co-workers. All of Karen's too.

Put the pieces weren't taken from just them either.

The two truck drivers involved in the crash lost pieces of their lives. Their family and friends lost pieces of their lives.

Even emergency personnel at the scene, the doctors and nurses who worked to save Toni and got to know her family during her time in the hospital lost little pieces of their lives. You cannot serve in that capacity and not develop a vested interest in the person you are trying to help.

The children who spent their days at the day care center that Karen owned and Toni managed, lost pieces of their lives. For many of those children, Toni and Karen's deaths was their first firsthand experience with death. We all have that experience at some point and when it happens we all lose a big part of our lives.

We lose the ability to live, completely unaware of our own mortality. It's a sad day for all of us, but I just see it being so much sadder the younger a person is when it happens. Regardless of when we become aware we're going to spend too much time worrying about what we have no control over anyway.

Five years gone and I find myself reflecting differently than I have the past few years.

The first couple years it was pretty angry crazy reflecting. Then mostly just sad and somber.

This year I feel, I don't know. Ok?

I know the people involved closest to me are all ok. We all have our moments, but we're ok.

Life has went on.

I have whole days I don't even think about the accident and Toni being gone. We all do.

And most of us have tended to take this day sort of hard. Not just the day Toni died, but anyone close to us we've lost. You probably have somebody you lost and the day they passed is just difficult for you.

Since it happens to all of us, obviously there is a place for it. There's something we get from it. How long should our loved ones last day on earth be a terrible memory for us that makes that day something to dread? Better yet, why should it be at all?

There's really only one indisputable fact in this life. That is that it's going to end. For each and every person who ever gives life a spin. The end may come at one second old, it may come at a hundred and fifteen years old, but it's going to come.

Whether the time, date and circumstances are all predestined or just happen as a matter of course doesn't really matter, since there's no way to know. But the end comes. Knowing that, wouldn't it be more logical for us to look at that day without dread? Without sadness for circumstances neither we nor our loved ones had control over? Wouldn't our loved ones, if they are aware of our continuing life, feel better seeing us happily and fondly remembering them than being sad and cursing the circumstances and people and things we had no control over?

Many peoples funeral services contain words to the affect of "do not remember me in sadness but in joy for the life I lived and the moments I shared with you". Or something like that.

Well, even though we get those instructions we sure don't live by them. At least not right away.

But if we're lucky, if we're open to letting go of something we wish we had control over but didn't, we can ease up a bit on the harsh words and thoughts for those days we don't like. We can be ok again.

There's no way to forget, and no reason to. But there's plenty of reason to remember our loved ones and our time with them with fondness and joy on that day rather than sadness and dread.

And I think that's why today, I feel "ok". I'm not having bouts of anger, moments of uncontrollable emotion.

Time moves on and thinking about it now, it seems that there always comes a time where it doesn't hurt as much, where it doesn't interfere with your life as much for each person that you lose. Over time you have more pleasant feelings and happy memories that day instead of focusing on what you didn't have control over in the first place.

Wouldn't it be great if we could speed up getting to that point? Those we lost would probably be happier with us. If they get to have a chat with us about how much time we wasted feeling miserable about their passing and letting it affect our lives in bad ways, well, my Grandfather is going to have some words for me, and my brother will definitely be hearing it from my Mom.

That won't happen though. We all go through, over, under or around losing those close to us in different ways at our own pace.

But here's the thing: Part of that sadness and misery we bring upon ourselves because we feel like "that day" is supposed to bother us. We've trained ourselves to believe it's a sad day, a miserable day, a day we wish we didn't have to live through every year.

Nobody told us that's to be a bad day forever and anon. It's not even in the Rule Book of Life which doesn't even exist.

So, like a lot of other things we're not aware are choices, we have a choice whether to be miserable on "that day" or to remember a life that was part of ours and appreciate what we had.

I will never forget what happened. At around this time in the evening every March 3rd for however long I'm aware of March 3rd's, I'll remember my sister Angie and I singing Toni to sleep through our tears while "Arms of an Angel" played through my little I-pod speaker.

But the rest of the day I'll think about things like stealing each others records, calling her up at 2:30 in the morning like a raving lunatic and have her sit on the phone with me for who knows how long till I calmed down, wrestling in the basement and for some strange reason playing pool at our mutual friend Janines house in 7th grade. We thought Janines Dad was rich.

There's so many memories like that. Too many to waste time reflecting too much on the couple of bad ones.

Today isn't a memory of what was lost.

It's remembrance of a life lived till it's unstoppable end.

A life that intertwined with mine and many others. A life that took pieces of ours with it when it was over.

While pieces of our lives left with Toni, many pieces of hers remain with us.

And that's certainly a better way for me to feel about this day.

If this day were not "that day" this day wouldn't even have a story for me and a lot of others.

Hey Toni! Not only do I have the Bay City Rollers record, I also have the Dick Clark record and a record player now.

Thanks for making that mean something to me.

Thanks for all the pieces you left behind that day.



**What this has to do with the answer to why I write these stories is this; I like to remember, but writing I think also helps me figure out where I am and how I got there. Why I let people read them is because maybe some of the leg work I've done on figuring out different life experiences can help someone else get to a better place with their own things.

Ok, I'm BS-ing. I just write because I write.