It starts like this: I miss Cory. I think I'll look through all the pics that were on her phone. I notice so many selfies! Silly girl! I smile. Suddenly I sit halfway up, heart galloping in my chest, as I spy one that clearly shows her hands and her arms laddered with bracelets from wrist to elbow. Her hands...I have no way of explaining how much I love looking at her hands. I am joyous at this unexpected treasure.
So I pulled it up this pic and enlarged it, looking the bracelets over closely, naming as many as I could to myself, and before I could blink, the flashback had begun. I was no longer safe in bed, covered with a light sheet; I was standing on West Michigan Avenue in the baking sun, being held back firmly by strangers as I craned to see that it was indeed my girl, it was my baby lying there, face down, motionless. From there, I was being led, by the hand, into a viewing room, by a quiet man named Mark. He spoke to me gently, cautiously, as if he wasn't sure just what I would do next.
My mind would only accept a few key images at first. Many followed in the next few years. But one that has never escaped my mind was seeing her at the funeral home for the first time since the road. They had left her bracelets on...the ones that had not been ripped off or broken in the multiple impacts...of the broadside of the car, the windshield, and finally the pavement. The tears just flowed, hot and scathing, down my cheeks as I remembered the eyewitness reports of how her body had flown up into the air. Sobbing- by then I was sobbing- to think of my sweet and beautiful girl, whose hair had ended up caught in the lady's windshield. You think that's a little unpleasant to read about? Try holding it inside.
So, there she was at the funeral home, my firstborn, lying on a table. A sweet man I really didn't know, who somehow reminded me of my father, escorted me to see her body for the first time. And there she was, my Cory Girl. My brain just couldn't take it what was happening or the level of pain I was experiencing. I want to die now. I want to die. There is no other way to tell you of the horror of seeing her lying there, looking very different from the way I'd seen her on the road, but still vulnerable, still motionless, many of her bracelets that she'd loved so much still on her arms. I wanted to take up the chant I'd tried on the road, even though it hasn't been successful there: "She's only nineteen! She's only nineteen years old!"
In a broken, jagged, 8 mm film gone awry sort of way, this is how the triggers come. One image, which in itself brings joy, can take you on a unwelcome warp-speed tour of disturbing images that infiltrate your thoughts, take up camp, get nice and comfy, and leave when they're damn good and ready.
It's hard to avoid what you don't realize may be a trigger. Sirens? Officers in uniform? I am aware of those. A picture of my daughter's hands and arms...I never would've thought.
The despair slipped in stealthily, and and I could feel it gently pulsing, filling every space from my fingertips to my toes. That is how I found myself at the cemetery for several hours last night, apologizing to her for letting her walk to the store for the hundredth time? Thousandth? I walked around trying to ground myself in the present with the sights, feelings, and smells around me. Sometimes it works; sometimes it does't. Finally, I sat in the car and drew for awhile, my heart aching and my throat tight. I stayed until the fireflies came out. Then I kissed her monument and drove away, the guilt, the horror, the sorrow lining my throat like a bad taste I couldn't swallow past.
I went to sleep and dreamed of the road.
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