All Apologies

I wish she would apologize.  I realize if you have to prompt someone to say they're sorry, they're probably not.  Still.

So many conversations have been dedicated to the fact that I've never heard from the driver.  Many musings of why she's never reached out or what I or someone else would do in her position have whiled away the hours without my girl.

Tim says she was probably instructed by legal counsel or the like to avoid communication.  I picture myself in the woman's position, and know the last place I'd want to be would be in front of the face of the mother of the child I fatally struck with my vehicle.

Fear?  Maybe.  Maybe somehow she's picking up the vibe that if consequences weren't an issue, I'd dearly love to go after her face with a hammer.  Maybe she reads the blog.

Confrontation is something I've gotten a little better at since Cory died.  But it's still not something I seek out.  When I really search myself, imagining I had inadvertently killed someone's child, I know I wouldn't go to them.  I couldn't.

But I would write.  I would write a letter.  And I would reread it.  And I would change it.  A few hundred times.  I'd obsess over it.  I 'd search for the right words, and they would never come.  I'd sent that letter anyway.  I couldn't live with myself if I didn't.

Tim says maybe she's afraid of being sued.

Okay, let's talk about money.  Money means nothing anymore.  Do I feel she or her insurance company should have paid to bury Cory?  Yes, I do.  That's just common decency.

That being said, money has nothing else to do with this.  I don't want a dime from her.  This is about guilt; it's about blame; it's about intent.

If the city of Battle Creek didn't value Cory's life enough to issue the driver a fucking ticket, could this woman at least say she's sorry?  Could she say she didn't mean to, and she feels horrible? After a million apologies in other situations that have never changed the final outcome of my broken heart, I can say they are at least a balm over the hurt.  To know someone is living with regret for hurting you matters.  It does.

When she doesn't take any type of responsibility for hitting Cory with her car, and the Battle Creek Police Department showed no interest in laying blame, all that responsibility settles firmly back onto my shoulders.  Mother.  Guardian.  Caretaker.

You try to walk with that on your shoulders.  If I didn't have Jake to take care of, I'd have escaped into drugs long along.  It would be such a luxury to not care about anything anymore, and then to die.

Sometimes people tell me I have to forgive myself, which honestly confuses me even more.  These are usually the same folks who've told me Cory's death was not, and will never be, my fault.  If it wasn't my fault, what am I supposed to forgive myself for?  Shouldn't I forgive the person responsible?

Who would that be?  Isn't it the driver?  So what she didn't get a ticket, and there wasn't a trial?  I find that to be pure laziness and incompetence on the part of Battle Creek's finest.  Does it change the fact that this woman, whose full name and address are forever emblazoned on my heart, hit Cory with her car resulting in multiple skull fractures, front and back, a broken neck, a broken arm, and two broken hips?  Does it change the fact that Cory was pronounced dead on the scene?  Does it change the fact that she never even hit her brakes?  That there were no skid marks?

I want you to think, just for a moment, about the severity of Cory's injuries, and ask yourself...do you think the woman was doing the speed limit? Does 35 miles per hour do that to a human body?  Can it?   Do you think she was looking in front of her?  Does it seem more plausible that she was distracted?

I know what I think.  I know what most people profess to believe.
But even so, even if it was a freak accident...
isn't she sorry?

She took someone's daughter, someone's sister, someone's grandchild.

DRIVER, WHERE ARE YOU?