Skating a thin line

Sunday evening I went to bed in a foul mood. I attributed it to the fact that I had school the next day. That, and the Winter Olympics had just ended and the epic ice-hockey match up between the US and Canada had gone all the way to OT, just to end because of a wayward shot vaguely toward the net. Those things happen.

Monday morning I woke up to the persistent sound of rain. I was still in a horrible mood. The prospect of a wet, rainy walk and a long day in the run down, ice-cold UHCOP building was looming over me. Meanwhile, my warm bed and warm husband were enticing me to stay put. I listened to the rain dripping into the metal bowl I had under door. Every once in a while I would glance at the clock.

Time was moving so quickly. If I wanted a shower I had to move. I pushed the blankets aside and tucked them around my still sleeping husband. He didn't even stir.

Throughout the day I was tired and unmotivated. I was anxious about the literature evaluation exam I had the next day. I didn't want to stay for Law, but since it was a guest speaker I stayed.

As I was driving home, I got a call from my mom. I could tell right away that something was wrong. I could hear it in her voice and it was almost as if my bad mood was hovering all around me. "Are you in class?"

"No, I'm on my way home right now."

My cousin, Laurel, had died earlier that day in a car wreck.

At first, I was in too much shock at first to comprehend what she was telling me. I was in shock at how my mind seemed to be reeling back. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it. I could hear it thudding deep inside. I don't know what was said afterward or what I said. My mom didn't know any details, just that her child was okay and not involved. I wanted to know how, where, why... all of those things.

So quickly. That was all I could think. It happened so quickly. She was younger than I was. She had a child. I hadn't seen her in years, and now I wouldn't see her again. It was too much to process.

When I got back to my apartment I got on-line and immediately started searching. I know now because it was as if I didn't believe it.

It reminded me so much of the day in high school that I came to school, and on my way in I heard that a classmate of mine had died from one of my friends. I had no reason to distrust my friend, but at the same time the thought of someone my age dying so suddenly seemed so wrong.

I didn't know him personally, but he was friends with friends who were friends with my friends. Distantly. But he sat near us in the mornings in the cafeteria before they let the students back into the halls to go to their lockers. He was always there early. He was an interesting person who made an impression on people around him. After all, I had never really spoken to him and I knew him. I expected to see him there like always.

But that day I came around one of the large brick columns of Coppell High School and went inside the newer half of the cafeteria to where we all sat. My eyes were on our tables.

He wasn't there. He wasn't there like he had been nearly every school day before. All of a sudden it became so real. It was true. He was gone. He had collapsed playing basketball with his brother. He had a heart defect.

Just like that day I frantically searched on-line for any evidence of the truth, or proof that it wasn't true. I knew it was in northern Louisiana, the Bossier-Shreveport area. I tried all kinds of different search terms and means to find it.

I was about to give up, but on one site I finally scrolled down the local news and found one headline.

Woman killed in north Bossier Parish wreck.

Even though they had not yet identified the victim, I knew it was her and knew it was true. Again, the reality just came rushing over me.

Later on that evening, the story was updated with her name confirming what I already knew.

I just got off the phone with the florist. I won't be able to go to the funeral because of pharmacy school. I was hoping I would be able to make it. Hoping it was on Friday or Saturday because I didn't have site this week. But no. The service will be on Thursday.

The florist asked me questions I hadn't even considered. For the family? For the service? I don't know. What do you want the card to say? I don't know, I hadn't thought of it yet. I've never done this before.

I just wanted to do something, anything. I wanted to help show how much I will miss her, even though I hadn't seen her in a while. I remember going over to her house and hanging out with her and my then Aunt Misti. I am torn up inside thinking about how Misti is feeling. I am sick thinking about how my cousin Kanon, Laurel's younger sister, is doing.

It is such a thin line we are on. We are such fragile beings. We live life so dangerously. Ben and I had just spent the weekend testing out his new car, and now it seems so silly and stupid to have done some of the things we did.

I know my friends who have died are in a better place now, but the suddenness in which they have left leaves such a raw and uncertain place in my heart.

I just can't stop thinking about how I woke up and listened to the rain. The same line of rainstorms that made the roads wet in northern Louisiana. Just a couple hours after I slid out of bed, her car slid off the road.

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o’ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O! how shall summer’s honey breath hold out,
Against the wrackful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O! none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
--Shakespeare, Sonnet 65