The whirling flicker of ambulance lights must look different when you know the people inside. The headlights beaming through the night like death was eating away their final thoughts. I have pictured the scene a thousand times in my mind. I see the red and white flashing strobes spin on the snow-covered embankment. The twisted metal, shattered glass and oil repaving the asphalt. The tears freezing as they slowly make their way down the families’ cheeks. I think everyone’s heart skipped a beat when theirs stopped. You aren’t supposed to die young. No one is prepared to deal with that.
When someone dies, someone close its impossible as an initial reaction to not think, “Thank God it wasn’t me.” After the days past without hearing their voice, without their smile, the sparkle they produce when they enter the room, you start to think,
“Why not me?” Once the selfish human response wears off, that’s when it really starts to hurt. When it first hits you, right in the face, with a broken nose and tears streaming along with the blood down your cheeks, it becomes apparent, “I’m never going to see them again.” I started begging a trade with God. They offered the world so much more take me not them.
I remember everything about that day. It was snowing out. A wet snow that froze, as the night air grew colder and the ominous moonlight grew brighter. I remember thinking as I turned down the road to work, “Wow, these roads are awful, lots of accidents are gonna happen.” Work was pretty normal, boring and long. The one thing that was strange was how white the walls of the kitchen appeared when I walked in Toontown’s employee entrance back door. They were gleaming a obvious white, like when someone smiles at you that overtly toothy smile but you know its because they know something you should. As if they were smiling at you to lighten your sprits before they devastate you with a harsh truth. Ironically, I saw the same smile on my moms face when I got home from work that night around nine. I walked in the house irritated from the cold and the terrifying road conditions. I sift through the mail on my computer desk, nothing good, college promos and a thing from the navy.
“Jason, come in here please” my mom pleads from the kitchen table.
Shuffling my way through the office to the table to listen to what I thought was going to be a lecture about my grades or chores. “Sit down, I gotta tell you something” At this point my mind files through the older family members who were ailing from various illnesses, assuming one must have passed. “Vanessa and Ryan got into a bad accident tonight, they didn’t make it… they both died.” I don’t know why, but I asked if they were ok. As if my mind simply couldn’t fit the idea into a solid concept. “They both died.” She repeated.
I was catatonic. Staring straight forward with the expression of void dripping off my chin. My mom went on to try and comfort me saying something I don’t remember, I stopped paying attention to the world. My mind was so distracted with trying to rationalize the situation. I almost convinced myself it was a dream, or that they were ok, not dead.
She used to call me “kitty.” I never quite understood why. I think it was from that movie Monsters INC. the little girl always called the main character monster kitty, he was furry I guess, but I’m not, I don’t know. Vanessa Rae Pirrone. She was the type of person you could go talk to when you were having the worst day of your life and her smile made everything ok. She was vivacious, colorful, and absolutely adorable. We used to have this thing where we would pretend to make-out when the youth pastor was coming in the room. The look on his face the first time was priceless. That’s actually how we met, through church. We went on all the church trips together. We went everywhere from cedar point to IYC in Colorado and anywhere in between conferences in Chicago and Cleveland. We shared many powerful experiences together. A strong friendship grew between us.
When she died it was so unexpected, it felt like someone stole something from me. I had been busy and hadn’t seen her in a while and then she was gone totally. It felt so wrong like God made this awful mistake. The whole experience made me grow up real quick. I was the “strong” one. I was the crying shoulder, and the comforting hug. I don’t think I cried in front of anyone about until like a year later. I remember one of the most significant people I helped was this girl, Janneke, who was a mild friend but it was like she had no one else but me. I was with her at the funeral the entire time. The next night a few us close friends spent the night at someone’s house. Janneke and I were on the couch just talking and she was crying all night. She was just a wreck. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t like that. Why was I so calm and able to listen and help? It was like I matured ten years in one night.
The most profound and powerful event happened after all the showings and funerals were over. I was sitting in church about a week later amongst the defeated soul of the tear soaked sanctuary pews listening to the pastor speak to the congregation. Listening from a distance not really hearing anything but my own trembling thoughts of depression. Then he told the story of Joanne Wolenwitz (Ryan’s mother) in the hospital. By her son’s side kneeling at his bed, holding his hand and his incoherent pulse, she closed her eyes and said a prayer.
“If Ryan is to go in Your will Lord please take him, for he is not mine to keep from you. He is Yours take him if Your will is so.”
In the fog of divinity and a surreal terror, she had the strength to let her son, that she loved so much, go for the rest of her life. It was the greatest testament of faith I have ever heard.
Nothing has taught me more about life than to feel the pain of death. It opens your eyes, and your soul to see how short life is. People say you could die at any minute, but until you see it you don’t believe it. I learned to decide what was really important: love, friends, having fun with the time you’ve got, and to try and make a positive impact on someone else’s life everyday. You really could lose anyone at any moment. It is so important to me to get every gram of life, every ounce of love, and every possible exchange of interaction from everyone I know, so that when the experience of life is over my 21 grams of human soul is fully content with no regrets. I learned what death was that Sunday morning. Death was release from pain, disappointment and fear. Death was an invitation to live free as meant to, in a realm of forever pink and vanilla skies, where each breath is an exponential equation in joy as you walk with the very embodiment of love itself. If we could all be so lucky.
When someone dies, someone close its impossible as an initial reaction to not think, “Thank God it wasn’t me.” After the days past without hearing their voice, without their smile, the sparkle they produce when they enter the room, you start to think,
“Why not me?” Once the selfish human response wears off, that’s when it really starts to hurt. When it first hits you, right in the face, with a broken nose and tears streaming along with the blood down your cheeks, it becomes apparent, “I’m never going to see them again.” I started begging a trade with God. They offered the world so much more take me not them.
I remember everything about that day. It was snowing out. A wet snow that froze, as the night air grew colder and the ominous moonlight grew brighter. I remember thinking as I turned down the road to work, “Wow, these roads are awful, lots of accidents are gonna happen.” Work was pretty normal, boring and long. The one thing that was strange was how white the walls of the kitchen appeared when I walked in Toontown’s employee entrance back door. They were gleaming a obvious white, like when someone smiles at you that overtly toothy smile but you know its because they know something you should. As if they were smiling at you to lighten your sprits before they devastate you with a harsh truth. Ironically, I saw the same smile on my moms face when I got home from work that night around nine. I walked in the house irritated from the cold and the terrifying road conditions. I sift through the mail on my computer desk, nothing good, college promos and a thing from the navy.
“Jason, come in here please” my mom pleads from the kitchen table.
Shuffling my way through the office to the table to listen to what I thought was going to be a lecture about my grades or chores. “Sit down, I gotta tell you something” At this point my mind files through the older family members who were ailing from various illnesses, assuming one must have passed. “Vanessa and Ryan got into a bad accident tonight, they didn’t make it… they both died.” I don’t know why, but I asked if they were ok. As if my mind simply couldn’t fit the idea into a solid concept. “They both died.” She repeated.
I was catatonic. Staring straight forward with the expression of void dripping off my chin. My mom went on to try and comfort me saying something I don’t remember, I stopped paying attention to the world. My mind was so distracted with trying to rationalize the situation. I almost convinced myself it was a dream, or that they were ok, not dead.
She used to call me “kitty.” I never quite understood why. I think it was from that movie Monsters INC. the little girl always called the main character monster kitty, he was furry I guess, but I’m not, I don’t know. Vanessa Rae Pirrone. She was the type of person you could go talk to when you were having the worst day of your life and her smile made everything ok. She was vivacious, colorful, and absolutely adorable. We used to have this thing where we would pretend to make-out when the youth pastor was coming in the room. The look on his face the first time was priceless. That’s actually how we met, through church. We went on all the church trips together. We went everywhere from cedar point to IYC in Colorado and anywhere in between conferences in Chicago and Cleveland. We shared many powerful experiences together. A strong friendship grew between us.
When she died it was so unexpected, it felt like someone stole something from me. I had been busy and hadn’t seen her in a while and then she was gone totally. It felt so wrong like God made this awful mistake. The whole experience made me grow up real quick. I was the “strong” one. I was the crying shoulder, and the comforting hug. I don’t think I cried in front of anyone about until like a year later. I remember one of the most significant people I helped was this girl, Janneke, who was a mild friend but it was like she had no one else but me. I was with her at the funeral the entire time. The next night a few us close friends spent the night at someone’s house. Janneke and I were on the couch just talking and she was crying all night. She was just a wreck. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t like that. Why was I so calm and able to listen and help? It was like I matured ten years in one night.
The most profound and powerful event happened after all the showings and funerals were over. I was sitting in church about a week later amongst the defeated soul of the tear soaked sanctuary pews listening to the pastor speak to the congregation. Listening from a distance not really hearing anything but my own trembling thoughts of depression. Then he told the story of Joanne Wolenwitz (Ryan’s mother) in the hospital. By her son’s side kneeling at his bed, holding his hand and his incoherent pulse, she closed her eyes and said a prayer.
“If Ryan is to go in Your will Lord please take him, for he is not mine to keep from you. He is Yours take him if Your will is so.”
In the fog of divinity and a surreal terror, she had the strength to let her son, that she loved so much, go for the rest of her life. It was the greatest testament of faith I have ever heard.
Nothing has taught me more about life than to feel the pain of death. It opens your eyes, and your soul to see how short life is. People say you could die at any minute, but until you see it you don’t believe it. I learned to decide what was really important: love, friends, having fun with the time you’ve got, and to try and make a positive impact on someone else’s life everyday. You really could lose anyone at any moment. It is so important to me to get every gram of life, every ounce of love, and every possible exchange of interaction from everyone I know, so that when the experience of life is over my 21 grams of human soul is fully content with no regrets. I learned what death was that Sunday morning. Death was release from pain, disappointment and fear. Death was an invitation to live free as meant to, in a realm of forever pink and vanilla skies, where each breath is an exponential equation in joy as you walk with the very embodiment of love itself. If we could all be so lucky.