To the driver

There are a lot of things I do not understand right now. You ran over our son and killed him and have not made any contact with us. I would think you would want to know how our other children are doing or how me and my husband are doing. Or maybe at least just apologize.

I am still in shock and I feel like I live in a fog. Not sure when this feeling will ever lift.

The fog is similar to waking up from surgery. You know, when you wake up you are confused about where you are and then you slowly begin to realize you are in pain. Then after a little while you realize, "oh yes I just had surgery". This happens about the time you are offered more medication. There are people all around you, looking at you taking your vital signs, asking if you want water or ice chips. People begin to call and ask if you are ok or if you need anything. You are still in such a fog you have no idea if you are ok or what you could possibly need other than the pain to end and to be up and on your way.

People assume a lot of things and say a lot of goofy things to me these days. I have had to set in my mind that my ok's and normal's are different than they were before. These become sort of relative terms I suppose. Before my ok’s were, work is going well, gene and the kids are doing good, the dogs are happy, no one is sick, types of answers. Today ok means I am functioning. I am out of bed. Then people say, "well call me if you need anything, I mean it day or night" Well can I just be honest here? I can't remember to call when I am in my darkest hour. I likely do not even know where my phone is. Of course I need something I need someone to bring my son back. I need someone to text each day and say what did you do today, are you functioning, do you want to go our for a soda, could I bring your family over dinner, would your family like to come over for dinner. I guess at this stage of the game I (or we) still need people to assume that things are not ok at least to their standards and come up with ideas to help. I need something absolutely but I have no earthly idea what it is.

People avoid talking about Corey. I want people to talk about him. I am so grateful to his facebook freinds who continue to post on his wall or send me messages. They mean the world to me. I want to hear about my son. I do not want anyone to ever forget him. Do you ever think about my son? Do you wonder about his siblings or parents? Do you wonder if he had grandparents who loved him?

I have trouble driving. Do you have trouble driving now that you have ran over someone’s child?

Do you have trouble thinking, keeping all of your thoughts straight?

Do you have trouble concentrating?

Are you able to drive without seeing my son in the road?

I often wonder what look he had on his face before you hit him.

My husband, he is handling things. He still hurts daily but has been able to return to work. He still is haunted sometimes by thoughts of our son’s death, especially with the work he does.

Our next son CJ, it was his 18th birthday when Corey died, that was really hard. He has went off to college. He might not have went away to college had he not signed a commitment to wrestle for the college. Maybe it was a good thing for him. Maybe he needed to get out from under the gloom here. He seems to be settling ok anyway.

Our daughter, she handled things like a trooper. She went around making sure everything was handled and in order. She has likely stayed too strong. She does not like tears but she will give away hugs.

Our youngest son Isaac, he cried himself to sleep for 2 entire months. It was VERY hard to watch this. These two kiddos are ready to learn how to drive but my panic attacks are such that I have difficulty getting into a car with an experienced driver let alone a new one. The good part is once they learn to drive I never have to drive again.

I think grieving the loss of a child is the hardest thing a person can ever do. I think a close second is watching your children hurt and grieve. I think I am, at least attempting to do everything right for them. Get them in counseling and support groups, let them talk and cry, make sure they have friends and mentors around.

It seems like every movie we watch and every book we read right now has to do with someone dying. It is amazing I suppose it has always been that way but mercy it seems so much worse now.

It also amazes us how many Cadillac Escalades we see everywhere. I do not recall seeing any of those crazy large expensive cars anywhere before. And police lights, bike riders, people in the roadway. Oh how terrifying it is to me.

I suppose also you were probably made aware that your insurance fought for you and decided that none of the accident was your fault. There were no true witnesses it was just you, your SUV and my son. You are the only one that truly knows what happened. You are the only one who will ever know if you looked down at the time, or changed your radio station, took a drink of coffee. No one will ever know. At this point I bet you do not even know. You likely have blocked that part out, especially if it was any fault of your own. Your brain has to protect itself from self destructing so you have a story in your mind at this point that may or may not be the actual way things occurred. You are also the only one who knows if he died instantly. Oh how I hope he didn't suffer.

We were able to collect donations and pay over 10 thousand dollars for the funeral. We went as cheap as possible. People told us we could ask for help from the treasurer. That seemed like a joke. We did go and apply for help. They would give you $2000 toward burial only; this included a thin pressed wood box covered in velvet, and the hole in the ground. No one could add money to that to make it any nicer, no one could even be at the graveside. It was very sad. It is called a paupers funeral. That is not what we wanted for our son. Thank God he provided people to assist us during that time. My husband’s life insurance started exactly one week after Corey was hit.

Do you and your husband have life insurance? Have you saved money aside in case one of your children is in a freak accident? I hope so because no one needs to live through any of this let alone without money.

Corey was a special young man. He was on the Autism Spectrum and did not always understand the consequences for his actions. Well for that matter he didn’t always understand his actions. He was in such desperate need of friends that he would do anything anyone asked him to do just to fit in and be called a friend. Once people got to know him they loved him. He had the biggest smile and the brightest blackest eyes you could ever imagine. He was a great singer and dancer. He always wanted others to laugh. He would come into a room and because of the Autism thing he would not pay attention to anything already going on he would just break out in dance or song. All you could do is laugh or join him. He was so very book smart. He could read books very quickly and retain it all. He was rule bound and frustrated when others broke rules and got away with it. He didn’t understand hierarchy of relationships so he would often get in trouble for talking to an adult as if they were on his level. He cared what he looked like with his hair etc but he would wear anything you gave him. He loved red bandannas. People always associated that with the gang stuff but he wasn’t affiliated with a gang his just loved the color read and wanted the hair off of his neck.

He was a people pleaser and lived his life to make everyone happy. Toward the end he began to change. This frightened us very much but we would have never dreamed it would end up the way it did.

RIHP son. We love you. We did all we could but would have searched for more had we known.