“I always worried about her. I had to be a ‘big brother.’ I protected her. We planned an outdoor wedding. This barn had a lovely garden, and a beautiful path to a place I imagine heaven looks like. It was there, we saw my sister again.”
‘Drive carefully. I love you.’ Mom said, hugging us. 10 minutes later, she got a call. It was an unfamiliar number. ‘Your daughter had an accident. She wants you to come.’
‘Our doorbell rang. We opened the door and stood face-to-face with two State Troopers on our front porch. Just like that, our ‘normal’ would be forever changed.’
“Both of my kids were not home. But I knew they were here about Darian. She normally texts us when she leaves practice, and we hadn’t heard from her. ‘She was in an accident,’ was the last thing I heard.”
‘She was at a dead stop in traffic. She looked in her rear-view mirror and saw a car coming full speed behind her. She braced herself.’
“When he finally looked up from his phone, it was too late. I’m sure the message is clear here.”
‘Acid from the airbag burned my eyes. My first thought was, ‘Call Mom.’ I climbed out of my window, dripping in blood. ‘Mom, I crashed the car. I see cops coming. I love you.’
“I walked to my church, 5 miles away in the freezing rain, knowing I may have just seen my father and mother for the last time. I sat in the fourth row. I stared down at the ground, tears still running down my face. I wanted to be able to apologize for what I was about to do.”
‘I was about a mile away from my parents’ house when I saw a pair of headlights coming at me in my lane. I was so scared it was going to burst into flames. I sat in front of the car screaming.’
“I brushed it off and thought, ‘Oh there’s no way I’m pregnant.’ I went to Tennessee for a week for my birthday. I had my cousin buy me a bottle of Jager and I couldn’t even drink, it made me so sick. When I got home, I took another test. Sure, enough I was pregnant.”
‘Shotgun!,’ they yelled as we left. Travis got in the front and Isaac got in behind me. They both fell asleep on the ride home. The next thing I remember is waking up in excruciating pain.’
“In one second, I became the kid from the accident. The boy whose brother died. To the prosecutor, I was the delinquent child who murdered his brother. The guy who survived the wreck that killed his brother.”
‘To the 18 year old kid I stopped, you were minutes away from an unspeakable Christmas tragedy. If not only killing yourself, you were on your way to killing an innocent person.’
“You said you didn’t realize how fast you were going. That’s a lie. You were scared when I stopped you. You were visibly shaking and breathing hard. Unfortunately, you were scared for the wrong reason.”
‘Mom, we have to take them home.’ It was so hard to look at these girls and not cry. It was like looking into the eyes of my sister, eyes I had not seen in 8 years, eyes I would never see again.’
“The woman who had the girls was not at all family, but a friend from church. They had been removed from her care and were in a foster home. After we got off the phone, I panicked – what was I going to do?”
‘Who is this,’ I asked. ‘This is Ty’s assistant principal. I just came upon a car accident on my way home. It’s Ty, and he is not good.’ Wait, what?
“I told him I would let him know when I was home from school, so he could come pick me up. Little did I know when I made that phone call, the details I heard on the other end would change our lives forever. Nothing would ever, ever be the same.”
‘I play out the details of that final weekend in my head. Struck by how quickly it was all over. Just like that, she was gone. Gone forever.’
“It intensifies on November 8th. That is the day my soulmate came home for Veterans Day weekend. It was a Thursday evening, as it is this year. She kissed me goodbye, then my life was turned upside down.”
