Can't even remember how long ago it was, but it was cold like it is now.
County Road 13, less than a mile outside of Ada, MN. Driving through at night, crossing this for the first time since
She said her kid dropped something. Three of them in the van, the middle or older one in the front with her, she looked down to pick whatever-it-was up and that's when she crossed the intersection and collided with the passenger side of the sedan. It only took a second or two and that's how it usually is but
the wind...
cries...
mary...
Jimi Hendrix, playing at the end of it's last chorus as my car shook and trees bent inward and I tuned into 107.5, tears welling up. Meredith Reynolds. One of the hardest numbers I've ever erased.
At the funeral the next day I broke down for the second time, in the aisle walking toward a casket I couldn't look into, then did, then broke. I approached and decided it was just better if I could hold it in, later I would let it happen.
Never had met her parents, but as I'm walking up everyone's hugging them and they're hugging everyone or shaking hands and I walk up and her mother can see my eyes red and my face is flushed and maybe a little swollen. I'm looking at her and she takes my hands and she tells me, assures me, that I will be okay. I will get past this. This is not the end of anything.
Hugs me, I step over to her father who doesn't drop a beat just embraces me. I put my face in his shoulder and he whispers in my ear,
"She always said you were a good friend."
I think about that every time I drive home.
*
I thought about a lot of things while I was home. The flat landscape has a tendency to push a person inward, to become reclusive. Trees dotting the fields like spikes and during winter like spines picketing a blanket and it could only be more perfect with ravens in the branches.
Nothing watches you, and people listen so they can relate your story to others later as if they were their own and that makes them special to live your life vicariously.
I had a good time at times, and then I left, and it's just better that way.
County Road 13, less than a mile outside of Ada, MN. Driving through at night, crossing this for the first time since
She said her kid dropped something. Three of them in the van, the middle or older one in the front with her, she looked down to pick whatever-it-was up and that's when she crossed the intersection and collided with the passenger side of the sedan. It only took a second or two and that's how it usually is but
the wind...
cries...
mary...
Jimi Hendrix, playing at the end of it's last chorus as my car shook and trees bent inward and I tuned into 107.5, tears welling up. Meredith Reynolds. One of the hardest numbers I've ever erased.
At the funeral the next day I broke down for the second time, in the aisle walking toward a casket I couldn't look into, then did, then broke. I approached and decided it was just better if I could hold it in, later I would let it happen.
Never had met her parents, but as I'm walking up everyone's hugging them and they're hugging everyone or shaking hands and I walk up and her mother can see my eyes red and my face is flushed and maybe a little swollen. I'm looking at her and she takes my hands and she tells me, assures me, that I will be okay. I will get past this. This is not the end of anything.
Hugs me, I step over to her father who doesn't drop a beat just embraces me. I put my face in his shoulder and he whispers in my ear,
"She always said you were a good friend."
I think about that every time I drive home.
*
I thought about a lot of things while I was home. The flat landscape has a tendency to push a person inward, to become reclusive. Trees dotting the fields like spikes and during winter like spines picketing a blanket and it could only be more perfect with ravens in the branches.
Nothing watches you, and people listen so they can relate your story to others later as if they were their own and that makes them special to live your life vicariously.
I had a good time at times, and then I left, and it's just better that way.
VIEW 24 of 24 COMMENTS
parks:
I'm glad there are people that love their families. I also hate my hometown, the longer I stay away the more I hate going back.
shanana:
I'm back... missed you 