Whew. This weekend was a fuckload of intense reality. We ended up cramming in the truck, the five of us and one of Jaidon’s best friends, and headed out to West Virginia along the same route the kids all took the day our world was turned upside down.
I am a very visual person and the images I had been conjuring up since the accident were beyond horrific and I find that I function better when grounded in reality. Well, there was plenty of that for a lifetime. We got to the site and I’m not gonna lie, it was awful, way steeper and further down than I imagined. But it was beautiful and green where I envisioned hard rocky canyons. We walked the 130 yards down, following the path of leftover car pieces until they stopped. The incline was intense, both physically and emotionally. The photos did not accurately capture that you wanted to scoot down the hill on your ass and climb up it pulling grass to assist.
We collected some items that were strewn along the path, to include one of Jaidon’s earbuds, which rarely left his head.
We went to the impound lot and saw pictures of the car and spoke to a man on the scene that night. Headed over to the hospital to thank the workers who were there that night. The car ride back was more solemn than the ride there which was filled with stories and laughter and tears and heartache.
I have no words for what I saw, heard and experienced, grounded in a reality I never wanted, with a life path I had always dreaded coming into play.
This morning Troy and I went to the cemetery, like we do every week and there was a beautifully painted rock that said “remember” in Hebrew. Thank you to whomever left it. You have no idea how much it meant to see, especially after such a hard weekend.