celebrating life

I still hesitate when I tell people that our baby's name is August. It doesn't flow easily out my mouth because it's so different. Now that it's the month August I feel like when I say the word "August" I have to clarify if I am talking about the month August or the cute baby August. The truth is that last year I took two writing classes and I ended up writing a lot about family history and family members who impacted my life and who I am--my family's life and who we are. When we found out we were having another boy we wanted to name him after two of those special people. I look forward to telling August stories about the men he was named after, and I hope he is proud of his name, even if does get a little confusing, especially during the month of August. Augustus Goss is my grandfather, and I recently discovered that he was named after his grandfather. I want to talk about him later. Soon. August Benjamin got his middle name from my brother, Benjamin. His birthday is tomorrow. He would be 33. His age has always been easy for me to remember because, except for the months between May and August, it is always one year less than whatever my age is. August is an interesting month because his birthday is August 4th, and the day he died was August 13. I decided many years ago that August 4th is the day that I will remember him and celebrate his life. On August 12 I usually think about what I was doing the night before he died, and on August 13 I always spend a few minutes reliving those memories. That is a sad day. But on August 4 we like to talk about Ben and tell stories about Ben and even eat Ben's favorite foods. This is a happy day. About 4 years ago I wrote down a few memories, and almost every year I go back and expand on that writing until last year, when it become an essay. Some of you have read some of this before, but I never put the final essay up, I'm not sure why. Perhaps because it's so personal. Partly because I kind of wanted to try to get it published (I might still do that...someday). Today I thought my computer crashed and I almost panicked because I don't think I ever printed it out, and honestly, I think it is the best writing I have ever done. I realize that today is August 3rd and I'm getting a head start on remembering, but I invite you to remember with me.

Remembering Ben

            Friday, August 13, 2004. The old-fashioned phone started shrilling at 6:30 a.m. that morning. I was asleep, unsuspecting, and when my husband knelt by my side to tell me that my Mom was on the phone, I supposed that she had forgotten the two hour time difference between Pennsylvania and Utah. I slid out of bed and walked into the living room to retrieve the phone, and faking an "I'm awake!" voice said, "Hey Mom, what's up?" There was a brief silence and then the words, "I'm so sorry, Jenny. Ben was in a really bad car accident last night." "Oh. Well, he's ok, right?" "Well, no, Jenny. Ben died." I wrapped the curly cord around my index finger, starting at the base and working the cord to the tip of my finger. "Are you sure?" "Yes, I'm so sorry." Silence. "What happened? Where? How?" A pause. I don't think she was crying. I don't think I was crying, not yet. There was too much to think through to focus on the words. Missed a stop sign. Van hit him. Unconscious when they got there. Heart burst. They say no pain.

            I have known several who have died in car accidents over the years, acquaintances. I have heard stories on the news, overheard conversations in grocery stores, of those young and old, whose allotted time on earth had been prematurely cut short because of some unexpected driving error, caused by themselves or some stranger on the road. I hear the stories, but they are separate from me, an unfortunate reality for somebody else. This thing, it could never happen to me. And so I found myself unable to grasp the words that were dripping into my ears from out of that bulky, old-fashioned phone receiver.

            There were 42,636 fatalities in the United States caused from car accidents the year that Ben died. 13,627 of them, a whole 21%, were caused from failing to stop at a stop sign. Funny, but not really, that we can go back, years later, and find an exact number, an analysis of the dead and how they got there, and for one second, two, three, I wonder which number my brother became. It was hard to believe, really, that Ben would fail to stop at a sign he had been stopping at since the day he got his driver’s license at age 16. It had to be some sort of mistake, a brake failure maybe. I even suggested that they have the truck's brakes checked, as if that would somehow make a difference, bring him back. Were we sure the other driver had his headlights on? And I wonder if it would have been easier if we had someone different, a stranger, to blame for his death. Ben couldn’t have missed that stop sign; he was a good driver. He and I had driven across the country from Pennsylvania to Idaho during the summer of 2000. We would switch drivers every time we stopped for gas—my time driving always shorter than his because he enjoyed the control of the gas pedal, and I enjoyed the control of my time as he counted down the miles. Ben knew about driving, and cars. After all, he sold tires at the regional car races. He even transformed a red Pontiac Grand Am into a car that he raced at a demolition derby. How did he miss that stop sign? He was a good driver! Surely he would not miss a stop sign. Now, ten years later, as I ponder his fatal error, I realize that perhaps I was wrong. He had just 6 years of driving experience; he died 9 days after turning 22.

            After receiving the call that their son, Benjamin, had been in a car accident, Mom and Dad drove to the hospital in silence, wondering, speculating. They were taken to a small room near the entrance, where they were told that Ben had died. They were led to a table to acknowledge a body that was covered by a sheet, with only a wooden beaded necklace decorating its frame. They walked around the hospital for a few minutes, hugging and crying, and then, instead of having time to grieve, they had to start planning. Who to call first? Young kids to take care of, a funeral to arrange. Countless calls were sent and received that day, including mine.

            Friday the thirteenth. It's a blur. My brother, Dennis, who was attending college at BYU-Idaho, got a ride down to Provo and stayed with us. I walked over to our neighbor’s apartment, the words stumbling out of my mouth one at a time that I would need to cancel our dinner plans because my brother had just died. They didn’t know what to say, but I wanted them to say something—give me hope, reassurance. But instead they asked, "Was it expected?" "No." And I walked away, left with a lifetime to wonder if I would have felt differently, better, if his death had been expected. I suppose there would have been closure; time to say goodbye, the opportunity to say, “I love you.”

            People have been dying for…forever. It is part of our life cycle. It’s inevitable. And yet for some reason we fear death. We fear it for ourselves, of course, but perhaps an even greater fear is the fear of loved ones dying, for it is those of us who are left behind who must grieve. Even after a millennia of dying, we still don't know what to say to someone who is grieving. At best, we offer our condolences, at worst, we give advice and say "at least." At least it was fast. At least you got him for 22 years. My husband, perhaps also at a loss of words, gave me a book, Jesus Wept, to help me understand loss and grief, and that is where I first read about the 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining and guilt, depression, and acceptance. I would study the stages, trying to assign my grief to a number, wondering most of all how long it would take to get to number 5. Acceptance. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, the woman who first explored the five stages of grief, explained that they “were never meant to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages. They are responses to loss that many people have, but there is not a typical response to loss, as there is no typical loss. Our grieving is as individual as our lives.” I like that. Because just as I begin to find rest in the acceptance stage, I visit Ben’s headstone with my four children, and they ask me about him, and what he was like, and where he’d be today, and once again I feel the pressure behind my eyeballs when I tell them that maybe, probably, he would have kids by now, and that they would have cousins. Friends. Maybe we would all be friends. But what might have been is only an emotional game of speculation, a game that perhaps is better left unplayed.

            Monday. Dennis, Logan, and I flew to Buffalo, New York. Joe didn't go. It was his first day of law school, and besides, we didn’t have the money to fly both of us. It was a quiet day with silent thoughts and tears. When we arrived at the farm, there were too many cars at the house. People started parking in the fields across the road. There were bodies painting the porch, tractors tearing down and moving an old, falling down granary across the road, and old friends inside cleaning the house and collecting clothes that needed to be ironed. They didn't know what to say, either, but through service united their grief with ours.

            I couldn’t sleep that night, and I hadn’t been able to sleep for more than a few hours since receiving the phone call on Friday. Despite the exhaustion, my thoughts would not rest as I spent the lonely hours of the night replaying memories and trying to comprehend what I knew was true but what didn’t seem possible. Logan, not understanding our new sleeping arrangements—his pack and play was just three feet away from the futon I was sleeping on—refused to sleep as well. He began crying, screaming really, his inconsolable tears mixing with mine as I pleaded with him, and at the same time prayed to God, for sleep. Dad, awakened by the noise, walked quietly up the stairs and collected Logan. He put his arm around my shoulders and commanded me to sleep. Tears continued to leak through closed eyelids; sleep would not come. It was quiet then. I noticed that the light was on at the apartment over the garage, so I slid my feet into shoes and walked across the yard. When I cracked open the door, I saw Dad on the floor playing with Logan. He noticed me, and mouthed, “Go to bed. Sleep.” I wonder what he was thinking as he played with my 10 month old son in the lost hours of the night, and I wonder if perhaps he was remembering Ben at that age, sleepless mornings with him, conversations they had had over the years. Memories. Regrets. Lost dreams. But I softly shut the door, and finally there was sleep.

             Tuesday. Dad’s birthday was on the 17^th, and he and mom celebrated by driving to the airport to pick up family who were flying in for the funeral. There were no presents. People brought food, until food had filled up the fridge and the freezer. Eating was a mechanical action; no one felt hungry.

            Wednesday. The Viewing. During an interview, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross explained that our Western world has a dishonest and unhealthy view of death. “They put shoes on the dead that are comfortable to wear, and silk pillows, and put rouge on the cheeks, so they look like they’re only asleep,” she says. But the Mexicans, she says, “They go and visit the graves. They bring food, they talk to them, they have a feast. …In the old days… they had what you call a wake. It was in the house, in the best living room. …[We] were able to say goodbye. …[We] were allowed to touch [the dead body].”

            And there was Ben, in a casket, wearing a dark suit and looking nothing like he did in real life. His skin was pale, covered in pasty makeup, and his longer blond hair was parted and combed to the side—not the crazy, sticking up hair I had been used to seeing. I speculated on the purple bruises on his hands. Were they from gripping the steering wheel? Caused by the impact of a van going 55 miles an hour into his side? Did he know what was happening, did he feel terror as he realized that he would be hit? Did he feel pain? Numb. That is the best way to describe how I felt. More and more people walking by and hugging me, until I didn’t want to have to smile at anyone anymore. I began to feel like I was going crazy; people would hug me and give and me their condolences and I would giggle, realizing that my response was inappropriate, but unable to stop. Someone, a relative, took Logan into another room so that I wouldn’t have to chase him around.  Finally, during a quiet moment, I touched Ben’s dead body. His arm. I did it very slowly, hoping that nobody was watching, mostly out of a morbid curiosity, to know what death felt like. Cold, stiff, unliving. I wish I would have talked to him, out loud even, and said goodbye. Perhaps one of these days I will be like the Mexicans, and I will feast with him over the grassy mound that separates his body from the living.

            Thursday. Funeral. The family got to see his body one more time, say goodbye one more time. Dad carefully removed Ben’s jewelry, the wooden necklace, which he gave to me, and the bracelet, which he gave to Rene. Then they closed the casket and we all filed into the chapel, which was filled with Ben’s family and his friends, many of whom we had never met before. They told us stories about how they had met him, and the small acts of service he had performed, stories that made us feel happy and sad all at the same time, because maybe we hadn’t realized just how good of a person he really was. We remembered and regretted and realized.

      Bishop Freestone spoke, and told the story about Ben agreeing to remove the granary in exchange for his prom tux rental, several years before the accident. He said, “Ben, we are happy to report to you that your debt is paid.” We cried and we laughed, we sang and we prayed. We prayed out loud for peace and comfort, and we prayed in the silence of our thoughts that there was a God, and that there was a heaven, and that there was a purpose, and that if we did everything just right, we prayed, maybe, just maybe, we would see Ben again.

            After the funeral, we drove to the cemetery—the one that is a three-minute walk from my parents’ home. We parked and walked over to the hole in the ground, easy to find because of the large mound of dirt next to it. The coffin was placed inside of a metal box, and the man in charge warned us not to touch the lid, as it was very sticky. Uncle Randy, of course, had to touch it, and after ripping his skin, confirmed that it was, indeed, quite sticky. There was a nervous laughter, a look around to make sure that it was ok to smile again. To laugh again: relief.

            The night before Ben died, Joe and I walked outside of our apartment to avoid hearing Logan cry himself to sleep. I remember looking up at the stars and wondering at the vast universe, realizing that there was so much that I didn’t understand. I had wanted to call home that night, but knew that Mom and Dad would be at the fair, and I didn’t have anything to talk about with Ben. Another regret: I didn't call.

            We were only 15 months in age apart--meaning we were at times best friends, and sometimes each other’s biggest competitors. When we moved to Pennsylvania, our two zebra finches died. We buried them in a McDonald's Happy Meal box and made a parade and banged on some sort of homemade drums as we marched around the house and mourned for those birds. Another time, we got tired of waiting for the chickens to mature enough to lay eggs, so we snuck some eggs out of the fridge early one morning, and then surprised Mom and Dad by “finding” the large white eggs a few hours later. Another regret: we grew apart as we grew older.

            Joe and I spent the summer in between undergrad and law school in Pennsylvania, and Ben wanted to take baby Logan with him everywhere . . . to the mall, to his friends' homes, on walks. He bought Logan a few outfits, which I still have and am saving to pass down to the next person in the family with a boy. And among the regrets I begin to find happy thoughts like this.

            Acceptance comes so very gradually, until one day you realize that even though your life will never be the same, a new normal has taken its place—a life in which this is what happened and you don't know any different.

            You start measuring time, measuring absence first in days, then weeks, and eventually years. Your memories turn into pictures and stories that you share when you celebrate the dead’s birthday with steak and potatoes, an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. When strangers, or even friends, ask about family, you have to decide in that moment how much you are going to reveal; always there is the desire to recognize that defining piece of your life, but you often abstain from that impulse, knowing that it will cause a momentary shock, an uncomfortable silence, apologetic words. Sometimes you give in to the impulse, and sometimes you gain an unexpected bond when you find a friend who knows about grief and loss. And I am learning that there is a peace in talking about death; after all, dying is a normal part of living, and try as we might to avoid it, almost all of us have a story to tell about death, and the dead.

            But I never stop wondering what if . . . what if I had been able to talk to Ben that night? What if he was still alive? Would he have kids? Where would he be living? What would he be doing? Would we be better friends? Ironically, many of my last memories with him have to do with this theme of death.

            I remember just months before, when Misty, the dog, was hit by a car a mile from home. I can see Rene running, barefoot and sobbing, as she hugs the dog on the side of the road, and then I see Ben driving up in his white truck. He picks up the dog and takes Rene home. I remember that summer, when he asked Joe and me to stop walking on the side of the busy road with Logan in a stroller because he feared that a speeding car would hit us. “I don’t want you to die,” he had said. And after ten years of pondering these words, I have to believe that if he cared about our safety, then despite our deepest differences, he cared about me, just as I cared about him.

            I remember him as the protective younger brother, who dared to tell me not to date boys he thought would not respect me, even when some of those boys were his best friends. When I pointed that out, he said, “Yeah, so I know what I’m talking about. They are ok for friends, not ok for boyfriends.”  And again, I think: he cared.

            I remember Ben. I remember him cleaning cars and riding on tractors and dancing in the kitchen to country music. I remember crying when it was his turn to drive because the rule was that the driver got to choose the music, and I hated country music. I remember Ben, taller than I, and thin but sturdy, strong and tan from working hard outside. I remember his spiky blond hair, his pointy elf ears, his high cheekbones and large nose, his perfectly shaped eyebrows. I remember Ben, who loved to have fun and who was always ready to be spontaneous. I remember the last time that I saw him, covers pulled up to his chin in bed, with Logan sitting by his head. We woke him up early that morning to say goodbye as we were leaving to return to Utah.

        I remember that after the funeral, Dad said, “I found some illegal fireworks in Ben’s stuff. I think he’d like it if we went across the road and set them off.” So we did. We lit those things up and we celebrated Ben’s life.