Remembrance

I still remember a tiny piece of thread that was on the floor at the hospital. It was black and small. It was unremarkable, but I remember it well. I think that's what happens in moments of extreme grief.

A little boy stared at me from his mother's arms in the emergency room. I'm not sure why I remember that, but i do.

I wondered why they were there. Was his brother in the back room lying splayed out on on a table too?

I'm still amazed all these years later _ has it been 20 already? _ how the little things are still so clear to me about that night.

I was at a party with high school friends. It was in Ambler, a small struggling town of blue collar families who were trying to give their kids a better life. My high school was there.

The phone at the party must have rang. Although, I didn't hear it. The party was outside. It was August.

Somebody called me to the house.

I took the phone. It was my best friend, Tara. We had been best friends most of our lives, since first or second grade. She wasn't at the party because her mom had grounded her for something we had done a week or three earlier.

"You need to come home," she said. "Your mom called from the hospital. It's your brother. Pick me up on the way."

She practiced, I thought. I slid down the wall in anguish.

I already knew.

I walked, or ran _ I really can't recall _ to my car.

I hardly remember the 20-minute drive home on the winding, leafy Morris Road. I think my friend Claire was scared. I must have been going fast.

We arrived at the hospital around 9, I think. But it might have been later.

I ran into the emergency room. I couldn't find anyone. Maybe Tara was wrong. "No," she said.

Just then, my parents emerged from the back room where my brother must have been. They looked drawn, tired. I knew it was bad. We sat.

I saw the thread on the carpet and I wondered if it belonged to some woman's sweater who had lost somebody. The little boy looked up at me with his big, sad eyes.

After a while, Claire and Tara and I went to the bathroom. It was one floor up. I remember seeing myself in that ridiculous Gucci sweatshirt. I wanted to change into something more comfortable, normal, warmer. I wanted something to make it all go away.

I vividly remember washing my hands. I'm not sure why I remember that so clearly. But I do. I went back down to the waiting room.

Again, my mom and dad were gone. My mind shutdown. My vision blurred. I think now that I was probably in shock.

A doctor came out of the back and asked me to come with him. I moved in a haze of disbelief to follow him through a door. I wanted to run away.

My parents were in a small room sitting on a sheeted gurney. They hugged me. I didn't want to be hugged just then. I think I pulled away.

I don't really remember if they ever actually told me he was dead. In fact, I'm pretty sure those words were never said.

You know something like that in these moments. Nobody has to spell it out to you.

I remember walking out of there. None of use spoke. I drove to Tara's and stayed the night. I think now I probably should have gone home.

A story ran in the local newspaper the next day.

The newspaper said that my brother had crouched down in front of oncoming traffic on Route 202 at the fork in the road before Burger King and 7-Eleven. The people who hit him were on their way home from their wedding rehearsal at the local St. Helena's Church. They had tried to swerve.

I knew where my brother was going when it happened.

He had asked me before I went to the party for a ride to the arcade on 202 and Route 73. I had said no. I had a party to go and I didn't feel like dealing with him. "Why can't you just be normal???"

He hugged me and he told me he loved me, which was weird. Then, he walked to the top of the street where we had slammed screen doors and raked leaves together and walked into traffic, changing everything forever.

We all live with guilt, I think. But it can be hard. I know there wasn't much I could do. I was a teenager. What did I know?

For a while, you try to forgive yourself or the person who caused the pain. But eventually, you realize that the tragedy will always be with you. That is what you have to accept.

Peace.