her life.

the first thing that comes to mind.... where did this arrive from? This slightly haunting memory that has worked its way into my days, my new sidekick, fingers intertwined, barely there yet continuously near. I grew up with her picture in the house. It was, and always will be, there. Now that I write those words I realize that the same photo, or another one of her will someday be in my house. She has to live on. My mother never wanted to forget. I imagine that she wanted Lynette to be a part of her children’s lives as well. She was the sister. The one I would never meet, the sister that my brother would never forget. The daughter that my mother never got to see grow up and the little girl that my father probably wants to kill himself over.

this is what I know of her. She had pale skin and light blond hair. Blue eyes.... I think she had blue eyes. This right here is nearly unbelievable seeing as how my parents, along with my brother and I have almost black hair and dark eyes. But she was different. Maybe she was already born to be a little angel.

i know that she was sullen, serious. Gosh, I don’t even remember what I know. I think that she didn’t like to have her picture taken, and by no means was she going to smile for the camera. I feel her delicacy. That is all I know. This was told to me while looking at her photograph, the one where she sits in a swing on the green, metal swing-set. The same set in which I played many years later. Here she sat, pissed off, either sombering up from a good cry or about to burst into one hell of a fit. I like her feisty nature. And I must tell you that I may be making half of this story up. I no longer trust these thoughts, these memories. So sketchy they are. All of this was talked about when I was a child, and while I can see that photo in my head it has been many years since truly looking at it.

my mother tells this story, not to me directly but I was standing there listening. We were in the church parking lot, summertime, and a little boy runs toward or out into the street. This is a country town so there are no busy highways, or much in the way of traffic at all, but understandably his mother was scared to death. She catches the boy. He is fine. Then my mother tells this woman the story of how Lynette ran towards that same street, or maybe it was a different one. My mother was too far away to catch her so she yells SNAKE and Lynette stops in her tracks, I have always remembered the story, that moment, summertime, church dresses. In it Lynette is beautiful and healthy, full of life, running in the sunshine. And my mother saved her.

years later I am helping my dad outside, still a child but maybe 8 or 10 at this point. We are working on something, who knows what, we were always working on one project or another. This wasn’t play with your toys or read books along side him work, this was shovel dirt, hold this pole, measure that... really lots of hold this, get that work. Not endearing kisses on the forehead and ruffled hair sort of work. Then one day I ran behind his truck while he was backing up. No real danger at hand, I was old enough to understand the speed / distance ratio of moving vehicles. But he caught a glimpse of me, jumped out and I saw this look of terror and emotion in his eyes. A look that I had never seen before and have never again witnessed since that moment. He simply told me to Never Do That - never get behind the truck when it was moving or when he couldn’t see me. I told my mother later on that day about his reaction. It is because of Lynette she said. It reminded him of Lynette.

she died because my father backed the truck over her body when she was 2 1/2 years old. He picked her up and took her body to the blue bathtub. The same tub where we all bathed for the next 25 or so years, the same tub that he still has to see every single day. He took her body there. Then he called Ruby’s house where my mother was attending a baby shower. She had probably come bearing homemade cookies and packages with pink ribbons. Thankfully she had just left and was already making her way home. I don’t know what happened after that, except that Lynette died. And my mother had the picture of her on the green swing-set blown up and it hangs on the wall forever and ever. While I did not know my parents then, I think that is when my dad lost the other half of his heart, when he ran over his own little blond angel.

so the years went on, but honestly I thing that they also stopped and that the time since is similar to dragging feet. I don’t believe that my dad ever recovered, nor do I find it at all reasonable to ask this of him. How do you see that image, the image of a wispy, blond, sullen darling covered in blood in the blue bathtub, everyday? How do you possibly live on with that amount of grief in your heart? Maybe others do, maybe they figure it out... breath long enough, find answers, see hope and the possibility of experiencing such a vast amount of love in the future. Or maybe they don’t, and instead they trudge through life halfway dead, heart set forever to off, waiting to die, waiting to just go away so that the rest of us can live a little lighter.

it was around 37 years ago that this happened. It was 27 years ago that I was born. Yet what I know is that the grief of this tragedy is no less real today then when I was 5 years old. Which leads me to believe that it can’t be any less fierce today then it was on the fateful day of Lynette’s death. Emotions have subsided. Reactions have long dulled, yet the story still survives and the sweet hereafter ain’t so juicy. It’s pungent and bitter and hard to re-tell. Yet it is real.

This is our life. My life. His life. Her life. Their life.
Lynette’s story. The way I remember it.
And this is for her.

kisses darling.