Retrieving Her Belongings

The antithesis of unwrapping a gift is being led into a tiny room at the police station by a kind woman, and then being asked to go through the final belongings of your dead child. Usually, unwrapping a package brings butterflies in the stomach, a smile, sometimes joy. Your hands are mostly steady. If you feel through the package first, it’s from a childlike curiosity, not a sick suspense- is that the memento I’m hoping it is? 

These bags and envelopes are sinister. They are labeled and coded- frighteningly personal with your child’s full name and birthdate, and yet disturbingly anonymous with their plain brown paper and laser-printed labels. They could belong to the parent of any dead child. But they don’t. They belong to you. You want what is inside them desperately, but know it will kill you to open them. Open them, you must.
Unwrapping these packages brings first a confusing recognition that is mingled with joy and shame, followed immediately by a saturation of horror, and then inevitably the final emotion- a longing so deep and so brutal, you will your heart to stop beating. When it has the nerve not to comply, you can do nothing but clutch your packages to your chest and stumble out, marveling at how this nightmare simply never ends.

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I begged Tim to go with me to the police station when I got the call that her belongings were finally being released.  He refused, claiming he didn't have time before work, although his shift didn't begin for a good five hours.   So it was my parents that I relied on to accompany me on this ghastly errand.  Dad drove, waiting in the parking lot while Mom and I went inside.  I remember feeling glad the police station had called, and eager to get her things. 

After waiting what seemed like forever, my heart in my throat, they called us into a tiny private room with a table and a couple of chairs.  I didn't know what to expect.  I guess I thought I'd be happy to see her things again.  What I didn't expect was the complete emotional breakdown that ensued as I unwrapped broken pieces of jewelry, and her beloved comfort hat. 

Last of all were two giant bags.  In each was a single Hello Kitty shoe.  I sobbed hysterically as I noticed they were still tied.  I raised my tear streaked face to ask the woman why on earth they had been put in two different bags.  She swallowed and lowered her head slightly, stating that they had to be bagged separately with their exact locations noted...and they had been found at opposite ends of the scene.

Desperate, I asked the woman, wasn't there anything else?  Anything?

Kindly, but honestly, she informed me that the only other item was Cory's hair sample that had not yet been released.

"Hair sample?"  I asked, honestly puzzled.

The woman nodded.  "Yes, Mrs. Mansfield...the... uh... the hair they found embedded in the driver's windshield."

I began howling, and allowed my mom to shepherd me out of the station and into their car.  I sat in the back, petting her hat like a live thing,  and feeling my mind continue to falter.