Friday, August 13, 2004 The phone
started ringing at 6:30 a.m. It had been ringing for a while, but I hadn’t
heard it because the bedroom door was shut and Joe had been in the shower. He
woke me gently, “Jenny, your mom is on the phone.” I faked a cheery “I’m awake!”
voice and said, “Hey Mom! What’s up?” “Ben was in a car accident last night.” “Oh.
Well, he’s ok, right?” “No. I’m sorry, Jenny. Ben died.”
Time
stands still in that moment, as I try to comprehend what I have just heard.
They, whoever they are, are still trying to piece together what happened, but
they think he ran a stop sign and was hit on the driver’s side by a van. They
spent much too much time trying to open his door, and when they finally got him
out, they called for life flight, but then told them to turn around just a few
minutes later. It was too late.
When
Joe answered the phone, Mom said, “Joe, I have some hard news, and you will
need to help Jenny and be there for her.” She told him, and then asked if he
wanted to tell me, or if he wanted her to give me the hard news. He knew that I
would want to talk to my mom.
Later
they would piece together Ben’s last evening as they talked to each other and
to Ben’s friends. He had watched I.Q. with
Rene and made her macaroni and cheese for lunch. She is happy with her last
memories with him. Mom and Brent got to talk to him at the fair’s sheep barn
earlier that evening. Dad had been able to see and talk to Ben at the house
while Dad got ready for his stake meetings. Ben visited Devon Lauger, and then
said he needed to go home and shower. He was going to go see his girlfriend,
Kate. Funny thing—he had made several conflicting commitments with different
people for Saturday. He hated to tell people “no.”
Friday,
August 13, 2004. Mom and Dad, Rene, Brent, and two friends had been camping in
the trailer at the Warren County Fair, and had received a phone call at 3:30 a.m.
“Am I speaking to the Foster’s? Do you have any sons? What are their names?
Your son, Benjamin, was in an accident, and we need you to come to the hospital
right away.” Mom and Dad quickly dressed, woke Rene, and told her they were
leaving. It was 45 minutes of silent thinking, silent prayer, and occasional
audible speculation.
Mom
and Dad were taken to a small room near the Emergency Room, where they were
told that Ben had died in a car accident. They were led to a table, where he
was covered by a sheet, but he still wore a wooden beaded necklace. 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.
They
called Bishop Freestone. Then they asked the stake Patriarch, Brother Miller,
who lived two miles from their home, to go to the fair to pick up their
children and to figure out what to do with the friends who had stayed with
them. Many other countless calls were sent and received that day, including
mine.
Friday
is a blur. Without thinking it through, I walked over to our neighbor’s apartment
and told them I had to cancel our dinner plans because my brother had just
died. They didn’t know what to say. Dennis, who was at BYU-Idaho, got a ride
down to Provo and stayed with us. Joe and I asked him to watch Logan on
Saturday so that we could go to the temple. We were asked to be the witness
couple, but I started crying hysterically and explained that I couldn’t. The
lady sitting next to me asked if I was ok; I told her what happened, and she
asked, “Why are you here?”
Dennis,
Logan, and I flew to Buffalo, NY on Monday. It was Joe’s first day of law
school, and besides, we didn’t have the money to fly both of us. Brother McDunn
picked us up from the airport. It was a quiet day with silent thoughts and
tears. When we arrived at the farm, there were so many cars at the house that
people had started parking in the fields. There were people painting the porch,
tractors tearing down and moving an old, falling down granary across the road.
There were people inside cleaning the house and collecting clothes that needed
to be ironed.
I
later found out that Mom and Dad had surprised the ward by showing up on Sunday
to their early morning meetings. Everyone stood up to greet them, and then
asked what they could do. Mom shrugged her shoulders, but Dad said, “Connie is
worried about everyone coming to the house from out of town. We need help
getting ready for visitors.” My parents, who had always been the ones to help
others, finally needed help themselves, and the service they received was
staggering.
I
couldn’t sleep, and I hadn’t been able to sleep since receiving the news on
Friday. I was exhausted physically and emotionally, but still, my mind would
not stop racing as it replayed memories and tried to comprehend what I knew was
true but didn’t seem possible. On top of that, 10-month old Logan was waking up
every few hours, and because we were staying in the house, I was worried about
him waking everyone. That night, no matter what I tried, he wouldn’t stop
crying. I was crying myself, and Dad came upstairs and told me to let him take
Logan so that I could sleep. It felt like an order, so I handed Logan over and
tried to rest. I still couldn’t sleep because I felt badly about keeping my dad
awake, and after a while, realized that it was very quiet. I tiptoed down the
stairs to see if he had gotten Logan to sleep but couldn’t find them. I noticed
that the light was on at the apartment over the garage, so I put my shoes on
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.” It
was, perhaps, one of the greatest parenting moments I have ever experienced.
Again,
the next days all blur together. There were a lot of people in and out of the
house, a lot of hugging and crying, and a lot of work to be done. Dad’s
birthday was on the 17th, 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.
The
viewing was on Thursday. 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 started 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 took Logan into another room so that
I wouldn’t have to chase him around.
The
funeral was on Friday. The family got to see his body one more time, say goodbye
one more time. Dad took off 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.
The
chapel and the overflow room were 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.
Bishop
Freestone spoke, and told the story about Ben agreeing to remove the granary in
exchange for his prom tux rental. He said, “Ben, we are happy to report to you
that your debt is paid.” President Martin started a fantastic talk about flying
out of the airport on a rainy, cloudy day, and discovering the sun after
getting through the clouds. He went on to explain to the non-members that going
on a mission, in the LDS culture, was similar to a parent’s hope and dream that
children would attend college. He then reprimanded the members in the audience
who were speculating about Ben not going on a mission, and what that would mean
for him now that he was dead, and for judging him in their hearts. He explained
that only our Heavenly Father could judge. My mom said that it was a comforting
talk, for her, but our non-LDS family members and Ben’s friends were upset
because all they heard was that Ben wasn’t good enough to go to heaven.
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 some
skin off, confirmed that it was, indeed, quite sticky. It felt good to laugh
again.
From
there, we drove to the fire hall, just a few minutes away, and ate the
obligatory lunch. Grandma Evie convinced my parents to pay to have the luncheon
there instead of doing it in the backyard. It was, I imagine, less work, but at
the time I think my parents felt like kids again, with a mom bossing them
around. I don’t remember staying to clean up, so I suppose it was a wise
suggestion.
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, and 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, so
I didn’t call.
We
were only 15 months apart--meaning we were at times best friends, and other
times 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. Those were the friendly times; I often find myself regretting that
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 old 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.
When
someone dies unexpectedly you go through a stage of denial. They must be wrong.
How could something change so suddenly? How could it possibly be true? Gradually,
you come to accept it, and accept that your life will never be the same, but instead
there is a new normal—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. 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 gain an unexpected bond when you find a friend who knows about grief and loss.
There are people who ask me how we do it, how we can move on even when something so hard
happens. Sometimes people say they wouldn’t be able to handle it if "it" happened to
them. My response is always the same: yes, you could. You have to. We have to.
There’s no other choice. The reality is that life keeps on going, and we still
have to keep living, so we do it as gracefully and happily as we can. I take
comfort in our religious beliefs, our knowledge that we are sealed together,
and that we will see Ben again. I especially love Mosiah 16:7-8.
7. And if Christ had not risen
from the dead, or have broken the bands of death that the grave should have no
victory, and that death should have no sting, there could have been no
resurrection.
8. But there is a
resurrection, therefore the grave hath no victory, and the sting of death is
swallowed up in Christ.
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, when I
allow myself to think about Ben and remember and feel . . . I think about how a
lot of the last memories I had of him had to do with death.
I
remember just months before, when Misty, the dog, was hit by a car a mile from
home, and Rene, running barefoot and sobbing as she hugged the dog on the side
of the road, and then Ben driving up in his white truck to pick up the dog and
take Rene home. How 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.
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.”
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 on
our way out 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.
