The First Time

 The first time I remember I was child, under the age of 10.  It was the 80's.  The phone was ringing, and I picked it up.  I could hear crying on the other end of the phone.  In reflecting, it may have been sobbing.  My great aunt was on the other end of the line and she wanted to speak to my grandmother, her sister.   I called my grandmother over to the phone.  The moment she answered the call, she began crying and screaming.  I could tell she was trying to comfort my aunt on the other end.  Come to find out, my cousin, a business woman, had traveled to Florida and was in a taxi cab.  An 18 wheeler had run over the cab trapping in her inside.  I remember some time after her death, reading an article about the accident.  I recall this one sentence from the article, "We tried to rescue the screaming woman but we failed".  

I was young, but those words have stayed with me.  The trauma that our family expereienced due to this death I came to later find out was not the first, and it wouldn't be the last.  I often think how my great aunt processed the death of her daughter.  Not just the death of her daughter but the manner in which she died.  

I often visited her throughout her life. We never talked about my cousin, but now I wish I had asked her questions and inquired more about how she handled it, did she still carry that with her.  My great aunt showed such a resilience and at times you wouldn't have thought she even grieved.  

I reflect on many family tragedies this way.  Like I mentioned, it wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last.  My family was resilient as they were accustomed to grief, they knew trauma and the found ways in which to cope with them.  However, some coping mechanisms weren't as effective as others, and some caused other tragedies to occurr later.  

This is one of my first distintive memories of death.  All wrapped up in a nice little bow of grief and truma.