Not Just a Statistic

It was several hours after we were told our son had not survived a car accident until we were able to go to the hospital and see him.  The drive to the hospital was eerily similar to the drive our family made to the airport, once a year, to pick up our son when he got leave from the Navy and came home from Japan.  But instead of the breathless chatter that filled the car on our way to pick him up from the airport and bring him home, the car was filled with a heavy silence, occasionally interrupted by a brief comment on the drive, and the constant sniffling that accompanied the tears that were flowing down our faces.

It was silent except for one outraged exchange our oldest daughter seemed to be having with herself in the backseat of our car.  Unbeknownst to my husband and I, she was browsing the net on her phone, apparently looking for any information about the accident her brother had not survived that morning.  She came across a series of comments about it on one of the local news stations and her emotional response couldn’t be contained – “That’s my brother, you idiot”, she blurted out.  I turned around to see what had disturbed her already extremely disturbed state, and she told me there were comments from people griping about how the accident that morning had made them late to work.

My son.

Her brother.

Gone in a moment.

They were late getting to work.

There are 7.442 billion people in this world of ours.  323.1 million of those people live in the United States of America.  There are 360,000 births per day in this world; 151,600 deaths per day.  That equals 4 births per second; 2 deaths per second.  Here in the USA, on average more than 100 people die every day in a car crash.

3 years ago, my middle child, my 25-year-old son, was one of them.

To those people trying to get to work on time that morning, he was just one of those 100 people.

But to me, he was one of my everythings.  He meant more to me than life itself.  He was one of my reasons I wanted to live; one of my treasures, my most precious valuables; he and 5 other people mean more to me than anything else in this world.

He wasn’t a statistic to me the day he was born, and he wasn’t the day he died, either.

He was my son.

He was the most beautiful blond baby I’d ever seen.  And he, like all his siblings, had the most beautiful blue eyes I’d ever seen.  The day he was born, the nurses all oohed and awed over him, telling me how beautiful they thought he was.  The day he died, one of the nurses who worked on him, trying to bring him back, told me that he had the most beautiful blue eyes.

He had a smile that would win over any tired, grouchy mama, and at a very young age, caused the neighbor girls to swoon.  He was charming, witty, easy-going, loving, intelligent, a hard worker with a willing attitude, adventurous, fun, and so much more.

He had many goals, and worked hard at achieving them.

He loved to play, and played hard when he did.

He cared deeply for his family.

He was silly and fun and a great actor.  The picture below was taken at Universal Studios in Singapore.

I can’t even begin to put words to the depth of sorrow caused by his absence.

He was my son.

He lived.

Tragically, he died.

And he is not just a statistic to me or my family.

I miss him more than I can say.