The 6 Stages of Drunkenness - Forget Me Not Mission

the pain, but they have not erased it. ”
been a long day so she went off to bed right away.
The next day was warm and sunny and the snow
was melting. Heather needed to go into town but she waited
until afternoon until the roads were better. There were also
things that she was involved in at the house. You know, the
usual – clean your room, yada, yada, yada. She wasn’t too
happy about having to spend her precious time cleaning. At
the time, I just didn’t know how precious that time was. But,
not only did she work at cleaning her room; she cleaned her
closet and sorted what things to give to Good Will, what
was trash, and what things to keep. Her last conversation
with her oldest sister Rachelle was, “Do you want to keep
your prom dress?” Later, Rachelle was berating herself
about what a frivolous conversation that was – a prom
dress of all things! Well, at least they had had that last
conversation, just a few hours before there would be no more
conversation.
There’s been so much guilt about having Heather
clean her room. If I hadn’t done so, she would have gone
into town hours before; she would not have been on the Old
Steese Highway heading towards the dumpster because she
wouldn’t have had several bags of trash to get rid of at the
dumpster station. But was it meant to be? Would the drunk
driver just have been on that road hours earlier also? So
many questions! Such anguish! So much pain!
I don’t know if the memory of the hours spent
in the chapel at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital will ever
be erased. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over having to tell
Rachelle that her beloved sister was dead. To see and feel
the pain that Rachelle experienced was almost beyond the
pain of my own grief. To walk into the room where they
had placed Heather and see her lying there with her body as
white as the sheet she was wrapped in because she had been
drained of all her blood; to see the blue of one eye peaking
through the tear in her eyelid; to feel her head where all
of her hair had been shaved off so that they could perform
brain surgery; to hold my dead child in my arms one last
time; to see and feel the grief of the rest of the family
members, as one by one the task of telling the rest of the
family fell upon my shoulders – how can one bear it all?
The years have taken the sharp edge off the pain,
but they have not erased it. I keep seeing her broken body.
At the funeral home, Heather’s right leg had to be braced
because it was broken in so many pieces. When the drunk
driver came around the curve and headed into Heather’s side
of the road, she braked so hard that the brake pedal was
bent to a 90-degree angle. She had tried to avoid him but
to no avail. His truck ran into and over the top of the hood
of my car – now forever known as Heather’s car. She didn’t
have a chance. He, of course, walked away with only minor
injuries. Heather’s tiny body was crushed. And so too was
crushed, our dreams for her and all the future times of joy
and togetherness, getting to know her as an adult, getting to
hold and cherish her future children.
Heather’s sisters, her brother, her father and I, and
all of her friends still have December 25th, Christmas Day,
to celebrate without her. We all loved that holiday so. The
togetherness, the tree, the gifts, the phone calls, the food,
the pure joy and magic of the day can no longer hold the
fullness that was once there. It was several years before I
was able to put up a tree again. Oh, we continue to celebrate
the day and the reason for the season, but one of my reasons
is missing.
She’s gone to Heaven and in that I must take solace,
for she will be there when I pass over and she will be there
to greet me, but oh, how I wish it had been the other way
around. Yes, it should have been the other way around.
Barbara Dowdy-Trabke
drive or your privilege to obtain a license will be revoked.
This will occur even if the criminal charge of DUI or Refusal
is dismissed, or you are found not guilty in court.
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