April
In the future I know I’ll look back upon April 2018 and wish I could wipe it out from existence. Alas, it happened, and after the accident and the funeral and returning home, all of us were in recovery mode – and likely still in shock. I wasn’t taking photos (it would be more than a month before I started doing that) and there isn’t that much to share. Except… There are several not-bad (I hate to call them good) things to write about.
It’s difficult to describe how much love and support we received from our close family, friends and school community around the time of the accident. PopPop and Safta flew to Madison almost immediately to help us out and spend time with the girls. Our school community, including teachers and parents, sent flowers and gifts of food and countless messages; and the entire third and fifth-grade classes sent handwritten cards to the girls. Two of my closest San Francisco friends, despite a freak spring blizzard, came to Madison for the funeral, as did my core group of college friends – including one woman I hadn’t talked to in years. And my cousin Aimee opened her home to us for days – creating what felt like a protective cocoon for me and my sister, a place where we could cry and mourn and plan and just be there for each other.
There are some specific not-terrible moments that stick out. A few nights after the accident, delirious from spending hours looking through 80+ years of my mom’s photos, I agreed to go to a nearby bar with Sandy, Aimee and others – and we wound up singing and dancing to a silly MC Hammer song on repeat. (The lyrics, “We got to pray/Just to make it today,” were beyond appropriate.) And I have tons of images in my mind of Zoe and Avery playing with their cousins Tanner and Brock. They were together 24/7 for five very intense days and the girls – Avery especially – still look back fondly at the bonding time. It’s the “silver lining” of what happened, Avery has said more than once.
-M
