Never The Same Again (Reposted January 28, 2022)
Holy EFFING EFF!! Once again, this date sneaks up and kicks me square in the nuts!
It seems to me like over these past two years, something in the time/space continuum has been broken. I feel like every night I am about to go to sleep and I think holy crap, is it Wednesday? Where did the last 5 days go? Wasn't it just Wednesday like yesterday or the day before? How in the HELL can it be Wednesday night AGAIN!! ARGHHHHHH!!
Until about 15 minutes ago, I was almost certain that today's date was January 27. And then I got a text from my Edsel Ford Thunderbird brother Kenny Lucas in Dearborn:
And now I am bent over once again reeling from a gut punch. Reposting in memory of my sister-in-law, Dana Blair Allen, and my Thunderbird brothers Scott Mattern and Mike Ouellette. Gone, but NEVER forgotten.
Never The Same Again (Originally posted January 28, 2014)
I woke up today, not really any differently than any day I can remember in the recent past. Thankful for all that I have been blessed with and thankful for another opportunity to cherish those blessings.
And then I was reminded of the date - January 28. Like many other dates in my life that have a certain specific meaning, for one reason or another, it is a date that often creeps up on me, unexpectedly. And then it arrives and smacks me in the face. Or punches me in the gut. Or kicks me in the balls.
We all have dates like these in our lives. Markers that signify important points in our life's journey. Some are happy dates - a wedding anniversary for example. Some are unhappy dates - like the death of a grandparent. Some of these dates rise to yet another level altogether, because they remind us of a moment in time when our lives were profoundly changed, never to be the same again.
I woke up on January 28, 1983 probably not much differently than any day before it. Still lying in bed, not fully awake, a friend came into my room to tell me the unimaginable news that two of our classmates had been killed in a tragic car accident. And the world was forever changed.
I got some interesting comments to a couple of my recent posts here and here. One person pointedly said to me:
Many people don't get the clean slate to write their own stories. Their life starts with other people's bad decisions having an impact on their journey. Through no fault of their own they live with consequences of someone else's shitty decisions and their lives are forever altered. Bad things happen to good people.
There is no doubt that this is true. I thought about that comment this morning, when the calendar assaulted me. My two friends, Mike and Scott, were killed "through no fault of their own" when someone else made the VERY shitty decisions to 1) get drunk, 2) get behind the wheel of a van and 3) get on the interstate highway going the wrong way. As a consequence of those awful decisions, three people died and the lives of everyone else they touched were forever altered.
I'm not a theologian, and I'm not going to attempt to explain why I think bad things happen to good people (at least not today). As I've said before, I believe that God has a purpose and a plan for each of us. But it's cold comfort to those who lost brothers to say that there was a "higher purpose" in the death of their loved ones.
My wife (girlfriend at the time) suffered a similar loss with the death of her younger sister Dana in a car accident in 1990. Not a day goes by that she isn't remembered. The dates of June 21 (the day she died) and July 12 (her birthday) are especially difficult for my wife and those who knew and loved Dana.
It's different for me, because I never met her myself (my wife and I had only been dating for a couple months when the accident occurred). I feel sadness for the sorrow of my wife and her family (now part of my family) and I feel sadness for the loss of a life cut short, with so much still ahead of it. But it's hard to personalize a death, when you don't actually know the person who died.
When I reposted this in Dana's memory on June 21, 2020, it occurred to me that morning that I have never referred to Dana as "my sister-in-law" prior to then . . . I guess because she passed away before Liz and I were married. But for whatever reason, that morning I realized that her death doesn't change the fact that she is my sister-in-law. And as I wrote that, I shed a tear, maybe for the first time, thinking about the sister-in-law that I never had the opportunity to know.
And I do understand the pain. It's a pain that I have felt these past 39 years. A pain that I am reminded of EVERY time I see the Number 22 (Scott's football number, but I can't help but think of both Mike and Scott when I see it), whether it is another athlete wearing that jersey or the parking space of my rental car or my order number at a fast food restaurant. A pain that you learn to live with as time goes by, but that never leaves your heart.
On some days, that heart feels a just little bit heavier. You look at the calendar and you are reminded of a day that changed you forever. When things would never be the same again.
Rest in Peace Dana. Rest in Peace Mike and Scotty. Gone, but NEVER forgotten.