The day the wheels stopped rolling …
Have you ever gotten used to something, and never truly
realized it until it was gone?
My husband leaves empty yellow sweetener packets all over
the counter, and in odd places where they drop on the floor.
The house grows so vacantly quiet without my daughters’
chatter when they’re staying somewhere else overnight.
And then there are those other ambient sounds. Maybe you’re
conscious of them, and maybe not. Sometime over the last year, I’ve come to
recognize this rolling clatter that speeds by the sidewalk between 9:30 p.m.
and midnight. Summer nights and weekends, it tended to be later. It took me a
while to figure out exactly what the sound belonged to – a skateboarder on the
sidewalk headed home.
Partially, it drove my dogs crazy, and partially it
represented that youth and freedom of long summer nights.
This week has grown eerily quiet. There’s a void, an absence
of sound. At the entrance to our neighborhood, a memorial of lighted candles
and flowers rest against a light pole.
It’s never a good
sign.
Last Saturday, Sept. 13, the 20-year-old skateboarder was
hit and killed by a driver who didn’t stop.
“Was he jaywalking?” some people have asked. Yes.
In fact, it’s the same intersection that I always insist
upon walking the extra few minutes to the corner to cross. Over the summer,
when we were headed to a concert in the park, hubby made fun of me because of
it. I’m even more glad I did.
A newspaper article interviewed a witness who said he’d been
hanging at the park and drinking alcohol in the hours before the accident.
Does either of those ultimately matter? I’m not writing to
place any blame. Instead, it’s sharing this tenuous connection of our
intersecting lives.
I never met him. I did see him on occasion – me coming home
from the grocery store with kids strapped into the car, and him on his trusty
board. We made eye contact a few times. Unlike his family and friends, he’s not
leaving a physical void in my life. But still, I will miss him.
As the nights grow dark, and the weather slides into fall.
With Halloween right around the corner. I’ll stay up at night, and listen … to
the silence. To the hole carved out of daily life, leaving the sad loss of this
young life.
Please send some positive thoughts for his family, and hope
for the hit-and-run driver to be caught.
Oh no. Hell. That's so sad. It doesn't matter that the man was jaywalking (or whatever) - ultimately the blame lands on the driver. I just took traffic school and re-learned this, by the way. I'm so, so sorry for the void in your life. Hugs to you, and thoughts and prayers to this young man's family.
ReplyDeleteThanks Christine -- it's a total shame, and such a waste of a young life.
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