The should haves and have nots.

One of the most popular questions that I have heard in the last two weeks is: "What happened?" Normal, everyday people just trying to understand how this could happen to an "ordinary" family, all the while thinking in their head, "If something like this could happen to them, perhaps it could happen to me too." People seem to grasp at straws when faced with tragedy that hits so close to home. My reply to them varies day by day some days (the easier ones) I tell them what is only an assumption of the series of events that occurred as told from the kind Georgia State Patrolman that responded to the seen. On the bad days, I simply look at them and say, "Does it matter?" This statement might sound cold, but reliving the story doesn't change the fact that you are gone and we are here, left to pick up the broken pieces of our shattered existence. 

I have listened to so many comments, conversations, and statements of the "what ifs" and the "should haves".  Really, does it matter? What if you had still been driving that truck? What if a friend had told you to just stay home? What if someone had told you about the storm? I should have stopped her. I should have done more.    What if she had taken a different route? I even heard about someone asking why you were out at 10:30 at night, they obviously have a severe case of amnesia and can't remember being 19. I guess that is normal, though. It gives people comfort thinking that your fate could have been changed by their words or actions. Something I realized that night in the hospital was that no one could have done anything and nothing could ever bring you back because life doesn't give do-overs. Wouldn't that be nice if it did?

What happened that night, I truly believe, was an act of God, and as mere mortals on earth, He is not an entity we can reckon with. A series of events unfolded that led to your tragic loss. That is fact.

My only regret is one that has nothing to do with what came to be that night, but more to do with the fact that I hadn't eaten up as much time as possible with you while you were here. Now I am left writing my sentiments to you in a blog, which hardly seems sufficient.

According to Kubler-Ross the five stages of grief are 1) Denial, 2) Anger, 3) Bargaining, 4) Depression,    5) Acceptance, and I have played witness to at least the first four and have been guilty of acting them out as well. Acceptance, I think, is probably the hardest to grasp because how do accept a 19 year old's sudden death? In true Chlesea character, I have actually been taking these stages on in reverse. I was talking to a friend last night and told her that the further I get from the night of March 3rd, the easier it is to deny it ever happened. But then I started thinking today: Who is this Kubler-Ross chic anyway?

Jared took Reagan fishing down at the creek today and I remember last summer when I took you down there to try to teach you how to fish. HA! A lost cause, as I quickly realized. I spent an hour trying to teach you how to bait a hook while you spent an hour texting. I finally gave up on that task and moved on to teaching you how to cast the line, for which you got stuck in a tree, a rock, and the embankment 40 feet opposite to us. By the end of the two hour session, I had baited, cast, and reeled in "your" fish, and you were so excited, but then gave me a lecture about how disappointed PETA activists would be at the cruel treatment of the fish in the creek and went back to texting. I never invited you to go fishing with me ever again.

Even if I did in the moment, I don't regret trying to teach you how to fish that day, and I like to think that you didn't either.