Embracing the Light

There wasn’t a funeral, as much as a remembrance, a celebration of Sunny. There was music, there were pictures, there were stories, and there was grief. There was no procession to the grave yard, there was no casket, and there was no viewing. Sunny was just gone. Simply and irretrievably gone.

I finally went to visit her grave today. It is beautiful, as she was. She is not there. I have much more intimate contact with her here in my own home. In my mind, with my own pictures, with the notes that she left, with the music we shared, and jokes we told. She is here, she is not there. The setting is nice, as nice as a cemetery can be, the headstone is beautiful, but she is not there. I didn’t feel her there. I feel her all the time…and I treasure it.

The Pain

Memories. I am not a writer, I don’t have the skills to make my words flow like I’d like, or to paint the pictures that I would like to convey. But, sometimes, I need to write, to clear my head. Once I’ve put it on paper, the thoughts are somehow released, and I can move on.

I believe it will take a lot of writing to release the pain and grief of losing Sunny. It has been over four months, and the pain and loss are still as sharp and as intense as they were the first moments.

My then seventeen year old daughter, Starr, and her very best friend, Sunny, were involved in a very serious and tragic car accident that took Sunny’s life. I have told no one the details of my experience that night. There was enough—too much—to deal with at the time, for all of us. But the images, sounds, smells and fear haunt me.

Into The Open–Heartless Bastards

Normal