 |
| This is the last photo ever taken of Cara |
| Writing about Cara's life has taken me into the happier times of my life, so to now write about her death is a great deal harder. Yet to complete her story I will have to go to those places that I have tried to avoid but with no success, for the past 6 years. On Sunday morning, November 20, 1994, Cara woke me at 4 a.m. The state patrol had called and said that my son Clint needed assistance. He had been driving back to college, and had left very early as he had to be back for his part time job that morning. They had told Cara that he was fine, and when she woke me she was all dressed to go. I have often wished with all my heart that I would have said, "No, I will go.", but all the wishing in the world will never change the fact that I didn't. She had gone out to warm up her car and come back in. The weather had turned bitterly cold since we had went to bed and she asked if she could take my car instead because it handled so much better on the ice. While my car was warming up she did something very unusual, she ask to wear my down coat. It was a very warm coat, yet she hated that coat and I was surprised that she wanted to wear it. When I brought it out to hand to her, her puppy was jumping around at her feet and she said "Do you want to go for a ride?" and put her lease onto her. After she left I sat here drinking coffee and waiting. I knew that it was at least a 45 minute drive to where she was going and in bad weather at least an hour. So I was thinking she should be home in about two and a half, or three hours. I didn't go back to bed, I sat and read. It was about 6 a. m. that my husband called from his job to tell me they had called for him to come help Clint. Again I was assured that Clint was fine, but I was thinking it had to be more serious then Cara had been told, if they needed her father to come help. Now, I begin to feel that sense of panic that all mothers feel when they start to worry about their children. I remember as the time drug past I kept thinking why didn't Cara call me. She would know I was worried. She would never have let me just sit for hours and worry. I will never forget the sight of several cars, including state patrol vehicles pulling into our drive way. My husband coming into the living room and telling me that Cara was dead. Clint going up the stairs with his girl friend Jill behind him and Jills mother coming in to sit in my living room. A Chaplin sitting beside me and telling me to just let go. How does someone react when they have just lost their life? I have always known that a great part of me died that morning. The terrible numbness and the feeling that this is all a bad dream and I would wake up in a few minutes. I froze at that point in my life. I have never really left there. The chaplin was explaining what had happened and I remember asking where she was. She had been taken to a funeral home in a town south of here, and I remember telling him I wanted her taken to Centralia and hearing him on the phone telling them to move her body. Clinton had only slide into a ditch and a tow truck had been called. He at nineteen had no money with him to pay for that and they had relayed a call to our home. Cara had arrived where he was at on the freeway. Certain questions will always pray on my mind. The state patrol officer had told the tow truck driver and Clint to wait there for someone to arrive from here. I have this written in his own hand writing. I was to learn later that she had passed through an area where 3 people had died a couple hours earlier that night. None of us were aware of that but surely they had some idea as to the conditions of the road that night. Why did he leave them sitting there beside an icy freeway? The officer then went home, just leaving them parked there. I know that Clint at his age had no idea of the dangers involved but these men certainly should have known and just towed him to the nearest town. When Cara got there, they had made certain that she was parked well off of the freeway and well off of the shoulder. She was parked over in the gravel. Clint had went back to talk to her and then was going back to talk to the tow truck driver and he said as he walked away her last words were, "Don't worry Clint, I will pay for it." As he was walking away he stopped and looked back at her. What he saw was a semi. The driver had decided to change lanes, even thought there had been no need to. He made the change to quickly and when the semi started to fishtail, he had hit his brakes and caused the tractor trailer to jack knife and now it was coming down the freeway side ways. He remembers screaming at Cara and then it hit and he had to turn and run for his life with pieces of the car flying past him as he ran. I know that this plays over and over. If he could have reached her.... If they could have rolled under the semi..... If, If , If. All I know is that if he had even tried, I would have lost them both that morning. When the wreckage of all three vehicles and the semi had came to a stop , Clint ran to the car that was now upside down on the freeway. She still had her seat belt on and he began to scream for some thing to cut it with. After he cut it he managed to pull her out of the wreckage and hold her until the state patrol arrived again. They had to pull him away from her body. He still has flash backs to those memories. My heart breaks for him and no young man should ever have to witness or live through something like that. I am helpless. I try to reassure him. I try to let him know how much I love him. But I feel so utterly helpless in the end. Nearly every mother I have ever talked to will speak of the screams, the tears, the reaction to what happened. I could not scream, I can still feel the scream inside. It is trapped and the tears I can not shed burn my eyes. The horrid lump that chokes me. It was there, it still is, but I am locked in this frozen hell. All of you who have lost a child know this terrible loss and the anguish that consumes you. People foolishly think that grief is in the mind. My mind is not where my grief is. It is that terrible aching hole in my chest where my heart use to be. This pain is physical yet no one can see it. For this kind of pain there is no help. There are no pain killers to help you and you know that it will be a loss the rest of your life. I know that some how I made all of the arrangements for the funeral. I picked out the casket to bury her in. I bought the flowers for her casket, I took her clothes in that she was to wear. I made the decision that she would have a closed casket and there would be no viewing of the body. She would have hated that. They called and said that people were asking to put things into her casket..... a friends baseball mitt, a gold heart, some baseball shoes. I let them be put into her casket. Those things would have meant something to her and her friends. People came and it seems there was always someone in our home. The minister, the owner of the store where she worked, friends and family members. I remember a discussion that it would be a problem for the grocery store as her funeral was the day before Thanksgiving. That is the busiest shopping day for the entire year and how could they let the staff go? I learned later they had no choice and everyone had refused to work. They ended up calling people from the wholesaler in Seattle to come down and handle the grocery store. The church was completely filled. A dining area had been set up with seats and speakers so they could hear, and that was filled up. Now they stood in the aisles and in the hall way. I was told that many could not find the guest book to sign because of the crowd around it. I know that Clinton wanted to speak and he did stand up but was so overcome that he could not really talk. He played the song, "The Last Dance". The owner of the grocery store spoke of her years of working for him and her abilities and her kindness. That he had never heard a mean or angry word from her no matter how difficult things would get. The girl friend I mentioned got up to speak of all that Cara had done to change her life. My oldest son felt that he could not speak at her funeral. But at the last moment, totally unprepared he walked to the front and did talk. Since I was later given a tape of the service I was able to copy his words from that. |
| The memories of Cara are too potent and I can not say any thing about her. I know you all have your own memories and your own way of loving her, and that is greater then any words I can say. I have a thought and a very quiet request of everyone who wants to hear it. Over the last four days we are all asking, "Why Cara? Why did this happen?" It is like a huge puzzle that we are all grappling with in our own way. It is totally what we all do as humans. We can not put a meaning to this. The way it happened and the suddenness of it. I suspect we can never solve that puzzle. We are only left with this emptiness. All I can see is this emptiness ~~ with her gone. So my request is that everyone take their memories of my sister and her love. And the memories of this tradedy, and grieve it. How ever you do it, grieve it. Then let it plant a seed in your heart. Let it do something for you, eventually. Whether it draws you closer to someone. Or makes you appreciate a hug more, Or if it just makes you appreciate life more, in the fragilness of all of this. Just let it do something for you, because that emptiness is so deep. We can not replace Cara. But we can use this experience someday and help fill the emptiness somehow. Look at all of the people in here and if this touches every one in some way, it has born a fruit of some kind. Maybe this sounds ridiculous but just let it touch your heart. I make this request to let it touch your heart, because I know that is what Cara would want. That some thing good will come out of this, from what now seems a senseless loss. |
| Later many people did come to tell me that they had appreciated what Clyde Jr. had said that day. So I am certain that in someways he did touch people's heart. I could tell you of the flowers that covered every table and stand and overflowed onto my living room floor, that just kept arriving at our home. Or the ones that covered the stage at the church and then flowed out into the floors two or three rows deep. Many I sent to nursing homes, many I gave away and the cemetery was still covered with flowers. Or of the cards that I was to wait many months before I could read. Some I still can not place the name in my mind. I do remember all of these things but more like an outside observer. Not as someone who was part of it. Most of you know the overwhelming effects of this loss. The numbing fog that surrounds you ~ yet the terrible pain that is too much to bare. The loss of your memory and your ablity to focus on anything ~ yet at times the vivid memory when you would pass a food in the store that you know they enjoyed. The rage and the fury that overcomes you ~ yet the knowledge that your anger will serve no purpose and will not change anything. The hours of walking the floors and searching for any distraction when you are left alone ~~ yet the knowledge that others can not comfort you. Some how within my heart, from the beginning I have known that Cara is fine. She will never feel pain again and I see her in a far happier place. It is me that is in trouble. Me that is in pain, me that is left here to mourn. I have lost my past for the memories are often to painful to deal with. I have lost my present because she is not here with me to make me laugh and to share my life. I have lost my future and now take my life a day at a time. I most of all have lost that part of me that knew how to create joy and laughter. That part who could enjoy playing with "Charlie" is forever gone. Now I want to play with my grandchildren but it is not the spontaneous joy that I once felt. Now I must think about what to do and how to do it. There was one more writing that I found when Cara was in her teens. It too was put away with my treasures. When I found it shortly after her death, the words were too much to bare. She must have been given time in a class to write any thing that she was thinking about. |
| Here I sit with 45 minutes to say anything I feel. Bad, Good, etc. 1st thought ........ Dying. I'm scared to death to die. Does it hurt? Does it make you laugh? What does it do? 2nd thought ...... Being alone. I can't do with out people. What is it like to be alone? Scary? Neat? Empty? 3rd thought ....... Myself. Why do I act the way I do sometime? What do people really think of me from what they say? 4th thought ...... Poverty. What would it be like to have nothing? To want something and never have it? 5th thought ..... I don't feel sorry for Most people who can't buy records, go to movies and football games because they are okay. People who have it all are the ones with the problems. 6th thought ...... My Parents? What happens in their life? What hurts them? 7th thought ........ People? how do I figure them out? I tell people too much. I worry to much. I want my work and my life to be successful. But I spend so much time wondering. |
| I believe now that Cara has the answers to her questions. I pray that she knows she was wise beyond her years. She was certainly a success in her life. Most of all I pray that she knows how much she was loved by all who really knew her. A few people have said to me that Cara was an extension of me, that is was how I raised her and what I taught her. That is not true. Cara learned from with in herself. I certainly did not have her understanding of others at such a young age and I couldn't have taught that to her. She was always CARA and her understanding came from within. I do take pride in who she was.......... but not as her teacher. I take pride as someone who was so blessed to have had her in my life. |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |