If you log into your Facebook page, there are 531 photos of you and 1,385 friends.
Impressive.
But what I remember of you barely touches that and though I have tried to recall all of the best/ worst of you in this blog, there was soooooo much of you to share. It adds up to a lifetime of laughter, cries, and yelling. And I'm not sure what to do but to continue to share and soak up what I can of your short 19 years of life.
Apparently, I am not the only one.I was contacted back in November by a young man, with an impressive background, and an amazing vision, about being a part of his views on grief. His name is Andrew Morgan. My blog about you caught his attention and he called me up to ask if I would have the courage to share our story. He was raised in Roswell, GA but now lives in Los Angeles, CA and was taking on the enormous project of touching on the process of grief. He lost his father in a bicycling accident in which Andrew and his father were cycling down Roswell Road in Atlanta one day and his father was struck by a car, mortally wounding him. I instantly felt a connection with this amazing guy.
So I agreed. Now your life was not lost in vain and our family's journey to survival and healing will help others. His documentary, After the End, highlights the way that people from different walks of life and different stages of loss, grieve. How everyone turns after the loss of someone close to them is an amazing journey, and he has been so brave to document it.
I was sooooo nervous the day that they arrived. I actually felt nauseous. I had spent days cleaning and weeks trying to prepare for whatever they brought my way. I was not prepared in the least. They got lost on the way here....to be expected, and showed up in all of their glory, not quite sure of what they were walking into. I sat nervously at the kitchen table as they brought in and set up all of their equipment, sweating more and more as the set up more and more. Before long, my living room was rearranged, with giant lights shining on my love seat, two cameras set up, chairs were placed perfectly, and a microphone hung right above where I would be placed. It was quite intimidating.
Andrew made certain that it was a casual conversation, but it wasn't something that I was at all prepared for. I had prepped myself for days, if not weeks, on what I would say, how I would react, and my reactions to everything that they could throw at me. But as the scene unfolded, I felt like I couldn't breathe. Eventually, I took a deep breath and dove into the conversation, after which, I felt like a flood gate of information. He asked me so many questions about you, which I proudly answered and offered up some extras. Then he looked to me and asked, "What was your relationship with Chelsea?". Hmmmm. This threw me off. How was I to answer, in honest truth, what our relationship was? I replied, "Well, she was annoying....". And then I laughed because I knew that that was as honest as it could ever get.
Through the four and half hours of questions, ventures out to pick Reagan up, and reading of the blog, there were so many hard questions. The worst of which came when he asked how the events of the night that you died unfolded. I replied candidly, opening up about what I could only describe to him as the most difficult moment of my life. As I replayed the events of that night out loud to him, I kept screaming into myself, "Don't self destruct! Don't self destruct! You can do this!" But it was when I looked up, into his eyes that I saw the same hurt and pain felt in my own heart in the eyes of the man interviewing me. His were welled up with tears and I could tell he knew exactly what I was saying even before I said it. That is when I looked at him and said, "There are no words to describe that feeling, the emptiness, unless you are talking to someone that has experienced the same thing." And there isn't.
At one point he asked me about my wedding. Up to this point I had held it together pretty well. He asked me what you were like on my wedding day, being that you were my maid of honor. I told him about how impressed I was that surprisingly you were amazing that day. You were reassuring and kind and told me on several occasions how beautiful I was. You seemed to know exactly how I was feeling and that the twisted knots of emotions that day were running high, so you did everything you could to make it seamless. I told them about how you complained about having to wear a long brown dress because "brown just wasn't your color", and I told you on that day that when you got married you could stick me in the most hideous dress you could find. And then I lost it....because that day will never come to be.
We talked about you, and talked about you, and talked about you. At one point, I told him about how impressed you would be that the whole day was about you. They laughed. They were so kind and professional, but yet so attainable, like I would want to call them up and hang out with them at some point. I told them afterwards, as they were leaving, that I was nervous about agreeing to do this because I have a huge lack of articulation when it comes to speaking. I can make anything look great on paper, but talking to someone, comes out more like...blah.
I had told them that putting into words the way that I felt about you was indescribable and painful. This is fact. During one of our 'breaks' I told them about your lifelong dreams, one of them being, to live in New York City and work on Broadway. I can remember you talking about being part of it all and how important it was to experience the New York 'state of mind' and live like a New Yorker. You wanted so badly to be apart of the limelight and feel bigger than you did in Cleveland, Ga. After telling me your plan for New York several years ago, I laughed, yet again, and said, "You do realize that you need a small mortgage to buy a gallon of milk in New York?"
I would have loved to see what you could have done with your life and while it sickens me to know that I never will get that opportunity. Your life and death will not be in vain. I know that you could have accomplished everything that you dreamed, because that is who you were. A portion of me and a larger portion of what defined me lie in you, something I recently discovered. Just know that you did finally get the spotlight because that day was all about you. Your story and how it affected our family will help others, and that is well worth the pain and struggle, and I like to think that your ability to love and give shines through in that moment. I hope I made you proud because in those moments, I know I was proud of you.
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