EarlSydnor572

"We all shine on, such as the moon and the stars and the sun... " John Lennon

A year ago today, I sacrificed my seventeen year old nephew in the tragic car accident. Against the back drop of the imminent onslaught involving Katrina, my family and I struggled to accommodate the shock and disbelief of what was happening around us. We pulled close and braced for the biggest life storm yet.

May possibly heard people refer to the 'the phone call that changed their life'. Backing using my driveway exactly one season ago, on a beautiful LOS ANGELES summer morning, I came to understand the meaning of the words. Today, one year in the future, I relived my cell phone ringing and hearing my Mother say "Where are you right now? " she ongoing, "your sibling wanted me to call you and tell you the boys (Thomas and John) will be in an accident on the method to school. They have been air lifted to Children's Medical within Dallas. " I pulled back in the driveway and nothing has lots of people the same. Presto changeo telephone call.

Family Geography 101: Being in one of the southern states during the evacuation period for Katrina brought the panic a whole lot of closer to home. Texas is my family's home now. I started the trend by relocating from my birthplace of Oklahoma to Texas after college, to help pursue my career in music and acting. A few a long time later, my cousin, Matthew, followed the Texas trail together with his wife Candice, toddler Thomas and newborn John. My parents implemented months later. I now have lived in La for thirteen years with my husband. They will stayed in Texas.

After hanging up from the 'life changing phone call' using my Mother, and waiting and praying an agonizing 3 hours. My brother himself called myself. He ask if my husband was with me and told me to maintain his hand. Then he said which, "John is going to get ok, but Thomas didn't help make it". After that I didn't hear anything he said. I may as well have been underwater. I passed the phone to my husband, and I went in the bathroom and screamed. Then I cried like I have never cried before.

I always thought that if something the following horrible ever happened to our neighbors, I would never end up being in the physical position so stereotypically portrayed in a Lifetime movie of the week. But there I was beating the bottom, sobbing, wishing I could reverse time. How could our precious, skilled, good hearted, dreamer Jones be gone, just like which?

Fast forward to the next day on a plane from LAX to DFW and a cab to Children's Medical Middle. Inside my purse, I still have the worn out, white index card which I wrote my nephew John's room number: A-2 Product, Room 297. The first person I embraced was my sister-in-law Candice, Thomas's Mother. We held on tight for what seemed like hours. I didn't want to allow her go because I didn't want time for you to move forward. I wanted time for you to be reversed, or at minimum stand still. Next I discover my Mother, Papa & brother, and finally poor little John, just about all bruised and sore, their jaw swollen shut, his face full of glass.

Then the important points come. The boys were heading to school early so they could get to an early morning piece practice. They were crossing some of those busy, treacherous country highways and an eighteen wheel flatbed gravel truck struck them relating to the driver's side. Thomas's side. Their car was drug in the truck, shaving off the top of the car. Then the car grabbed fire. Initially the truck taxi driver saved their lives by extinguishing this fire. A Care Flight for any boy carried them to Children's Healthcare. But Thomas had so several complications they just couldn't' preserve him. It is a miracle that John survived. Let alone with no broken bones. Just rehabilitation for his jaw.

While the residents of New Orleans together with were evacuating, my brother and wife were making funeral plans for a son. Deciding to have him or her cremated, because that's what he'd have wanted. Deciding who to call, Determining, deciding.

When it's time to bring John home in the hospital, they wanted to practice it alone. That three of them walked to their home. John without his your government, Matthew & Candice without their teenage son.

My partner and i returned with my parents to their house, myself without my nephew, my parents without their grandson.

Social details started to be revealed as we watched the Katrina news inside three days before Thomas's Memorial service: The 'on-the-scene' newscast that had mistakenly led the city to believe that both boys had died; The newspaper article, with a picture of the totaled wreck so unrecognizable as an automobile you couldn't figure which end was leading and which was the rear with the car; and the police scan one of my cousins heard as far away as Kansas City.

The community support was overwhelming. An endless line of caring neighbors bearing food and hugs. In darkness comes gentle. The light for me and our neighbors was not only the caring outpour from the community, but the people whom we least expected to be there, were the ones in the forefront. Among the list of regular patrons within my brother's favorite bar actually snuck in the hospital dressed in scrubs which includes a badge, bearing a package involving gum, some ink pens together with legal pad. Appearing to my brother like an angel in the night, an angel nicknamed Comet properly told him, "these are the points you always need in your hospital". And then just since quickly as he appeared, your dog disappeared. There are many stories like this one. Near strangers in an elevator with just the right words at just the right time, old childhood friends walking in the receiving line at the memorial service.

There were over 1000 people at the Memorial Assistance. Bus an awful lot of kids from Thomas's high school lined the pews. Relatives, friends, caring neighbors. Later I was sad to get a different reason. Exactly why do we only see many of the people we love at weddings and funerals? Life keeps us busy I guess. I have only been capable to see my family on three separate trips this coming year.

The emotional high point to do at the service was when John Lennon's recording of his song "Instant Karma" played. My brother made sure the song had been played because Thomas loved Kim Lennon.

As that cards stop coming, and are oh no- preparing our own meals, we are left with a clear space where Thomas used to be. We talk about him often. Between us and to our therapists.

Thomas had many passions, music was merely one. He was a sixteen season old activist who never withheld his opinions or questions about life's the case meaning. After the hurricane ripped through the heart of America, I could hear the many outspoken views he would have tried about the disaster, the way the federal government failed. The way they are still failing.

His mother told me a few days ago they are still receiving letters from congress people he had solicited for different causes.

John turned thirteen yoa seven days after his brother's passing. He has recovered from his injuries and it is pouring himself into playing guitar and trombone. When I saw John within June we were learning Pink Floyd's "Wish You were Here". It turns out shortly before Thomas died he previously ordered several Pink Floyd Cds. When the package arrived with Amazon. com people couldn't bring themselves to open it up to now.

As the cards stop coming, and we are back to preparing our own meals, we are left with an empty space where Thomas used to be. We talk about him quite often, between us and our experienced therapist.

Each of people has our private sorrow. Dealing with it over the phone sucks. Most of the time just phoning to say I??m a sucker for you is enough. We all seek comfort in our daily activities and church communities. My brother spent days sorting clothes for Katrina victims.

Each time a young person is taken before they have lived their life it's just wrong. It goes against this cycle of nature. We count on our grandparents and parent to pass before us. But a little daughter boy becoming a man, filled with questions and potential - he ought to be heading off to college, he should be eighteen, he should have some sort of girlfriend, he should be viewing South Park, he should end up playing the saxophone, he ought to be winning another debate contest, he should be acting in another play, he ought to be a lawyer and live in California with his wife and kids! This was an accident, not an act of Our god. It was an accident.

My cousin has forgiven the driver in the truck. So I am not going to make him suffer further by forcing a study into how gravel trucks get paid by the load and how fast the driver was going. The driver saved John's existence. And while the pain he or she feels from Thomas's death is usually unlike ours, it is believe it or not painful.

Yesterday, "Instant Karma" came relating to the radio. It was the very first time I allowed myself to listen to it since the service. And I remembered, "Instant Karma gonna's get you, gonna knock you off your feet, better recognize your brothers, everyone you meet... and we just about all shine on, like the moon and stars along with the sun.

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