Loss of a child

At the same time that I was approved for disability and we were finally feeling like life might get back to normal, our family was hit by tragedy.

In October of 2000 our daughter was hit and killed by a car near our home. She was 8 years old. She was my best friend and our only daughter.

It was Columbus day. The kids had the day off from school and had spent the day having a great time. Our oldest, 9, spent the day in the living room playing with dad on the playstation.

Our two youngest, 7 and 8, had been in and out of the house all day long. The last thing they had been up to was jumping on a bed that we had out in the garage. I had called them inside because it was getting close to supper and I needed to get cooking. This meant I wouldn't be able to watch them as closely and so I wanted them in the house. Our daughter came in and pouted her lip saying, "please mommy can we play just a little longer". I could never resist her.

I told them to go ahead but to stay in the garage and I would be out in a few minutes. I began supper and was watching John and our oldest play for a moment when the front door burst open. It had only been about 15 minutes since I sent them out to play. It was our youngest, standing there with our daughter's shoes in his hands. He blurted out that she tried to walk to the store, which was just down the road, by herself and she got hit by a car and he thought she was dead.

John ran out the door to go find her and I gathered the other two to put in the car. The rest of the day is a bit of a blur and very difficult to talk about. Our daughter, who was a bright shining light in this world, was in fact gone. And that piece of information alone sent me into a head long spin that I barely recovered from.

I was in shock for weeks. Thank heavens for good friends and family because I couldn't have dealt with all the details that inevitably come up without them. Although I have to say that there are also others who were not helpful. Some people said the most horrible things to us and about us. People made comments that simply made things harder. But mostly we were surrounded by those who loved us and would protect us from these types of things.

After the funeral, my mother called a lawyer and began proceedings against the man who hit her. This man told 5 different stories that varied so much that I'm not sure how he got off scott free and with almost no reprocussions.

This was a process that is horrible to go through when you are already grieving and barely surviving a tragedy like this. Lawyers are cruel and insurance companies are even worse. They tried to say I didn't love my kids and that I didn't care well for them. There were such horrible things said that it nearly put me in the loony bin.

I finally called the lawyer one day and said SETTLE. I can't do this anymore just finish it. So he did. The amount we got was a slap in the face amount but it was over and though NO amount of money could everreplace her or bring her back the amount we finally got was just insulting. However it did allow us to move from the area we lived inand build a house in the middle of nowhere where I could lick mywounds and start to heal.

That healing took years. There are 3 years after the accident that I can only barely remember. My kids are still healing. And, as you will see in future posts, John is still suffering with severe after affects.