Some Thoughts On Loss and Faith On My Deceased Friend’s 31st Birthday

On April 17th 2004, I returned home from my weekend stay at my Mother’s house. Upon getting in the door, I turned on the Television out of habit, for some background noise while I unpacked my things.

The news was on and they were reporting on a story where a young girl had been critically injured saving her infant child from an oncoming out of control car on her front lawn. Naturally it caught my attention. As I made my way over to the TV I realized they were reporting live in my neighborhood. They were at the scene where it happened and the house they were in front of looked painfully familiar.

I realized it was the home of one of my closest friends. He lived there with his Mother, his girlfriend — who was also a very close friend of mine and their infant daughter. In that moment, I failed to make the connection many of you probably just made. Before I got a chance to, my phone rang.

On the other end of the phone was my friend Matt informing me it was indeed our friend Sarah who had been hit saving her daughter’s life and she had just been pronounced dead. My first thought was just complete denial. Matt was either lying or wrong, he had to be. This didn’t happen to people I loved, my friends didn’t make the news.

I’d soon learn it was indeed true. A Father decided to try and teach his fifteen year old daughter who did not have a learner’s permit how to drive in my High School’s parking lot. She mistook the gas for the brake, propelling the car across two lanes of traffic and up my friend’s lawn.

My friend Sarah heroically threw her infant daughter out of the way of the oncoming vehicle but was struck herself, pinning her between the car and the front of the house.

Today would have been her 31st Birthday.

A part of my innocence died that day with her. The belief I had in something greater became suspect and harder to hold onto. How could a supposedly loving God allow something so awful to happen?

Sometimes a tragedy so terrible happens, it causes us to question our faith in everything. That is precisely what this event did to me. It darkened everything around me. My world was suddenly tinted with sadness, tragedy and injustice.

I remember sitting in class the following day, wondering what I was even doing there. I had to sit and listen as classmates spoke openly among themselves about what had happened. All referring to her as “The girl who got killed across the street yesterday”. Not knowing that girl was one of my best friends in the entire world.

I remember picking up my neighborhood news gleaner and reading an opinion piece in the editorial section from a woman who was apparently close with the young driver and her Father. She went on to speak of what good people they were. Then she had the audacity to call my friend’s character into question for having a child out of wedlock, I don’t know if I’ve ever been as enraged by something I’ve read since, or ever will be for that matter — thankfully I suppose. I remember the place that kind of anger took me to. I carried it everywhere I went for the world to see.

Her funeral was one I’ll never forget. You don’t forget being seventeen years old and seeing your friend’s Father jump on top of their lowering casket, in pure agony. A grown man’s shrieking cry is not a sound you soon forget.

A year and ten days after she passed, my cousin who was more like an older brother to me growing up passed away in his sleep at age 26.

I know what loss feels like. I know what it does to a person. I experienced a deeper sense of loss before I was an adult than I hope most people ever have to in their entire lives. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop there either.

You don’t ‘get over’ these types of losses. They are never fully removed from your heart or mind, the scar of the wound will always be there. They force you to grow up quicker than you should’ve. They show you just how harsh reality can be and how precious life truly is.

I am so far removed from the dark place these deaths left me in. I am grateful for my life and all of those in it today. Before I opened my computer this morning to begin writing, I looked over and saw her smiling picture, wished her a Happy Birthday and instantly knew what I had to write.

While I do believe things happen for a reason, I also believe some of them are beyond our ability to comprehend or understand. They’re not ones we’ll ever be able to know for sure. There are days I ask myself “why?” but then I remember I am questioning a power that knows far more than I do.

Then there are days like today, when I just miss my friend. When I don’t care about the reasons, the time that has passed or the answers. That is when I let faith back in. When I have to focus on all of the good in life and all I’m grateful for. Like the child of her’s whose life she saved who I’ve been blessed enough to get to see celebrate a 12th birthday.

The wound of these losses may never heal but they’re healing. I may never fully recover from them but I’m recovering.

Happy Birthday Sarah