Back on the porch this Sunday morning. Roofers are gone till Monday so Penelope is in her porch playpen and I’m comfortably ensconced on the porch swing. Ever noticed how your brain just fills sentences with correct words. Ensconced just rolled off my fingers. Thought maybe that wasn’t the correct word, but it fit so well. Looked the word up…settled in a comfortable, safe place. What a perfect description of a porch swing.

When I used to read voraciously, I kept a small tablet nearby to write down new words or sentences that interested or moved me. I’ve written down a few sentences lately. My latest favorites are — “Grief doesn’t ever get lighter, you just learn to carry the load,” and “You live with sadness but shouldn’t live sadly.”

When I was younger, I wore a big dictionary out looking up new words. Now I can just whip out the phone. I asked Stew to bring me a thesaurus yesterday. He replied, “I do not know of a dinosaur by that name.”

After my daughter Rosalyn was killed in a car wreck I lost all interest in books and reading. Just couldn’t concentrate to follow the plot. Experiencing this again since Chief’s death. I could however read books on grief and how couples and families coped with their sorrow. There is always another poor soul carrying a burden heavier than yours. And there some things worse than death. My mother used to tell me, “The Lord never gives you more than you can carry!” When Rosalyn died, trying to carry my load and Chief’s load of sadness almost wore me down.

The death of a child is such a sorrowful event. You feel punished for something you don’t know you did. I spent years reliving moments trying to figure what I had done that would move God to would deliver such a harsh punishment. I knew God didn’t kill her but the sequenced events that led to her death were synchronized. How could this play out with such precision.

She ran off the side of the highway on a dangerous horseshoe curve. When she corrected the the car she jerked the wheel which caused the car to flip three times. On the third flip the car struck a pasture gate and the fence post came through the windshield striking her in the chest. Instant death. Blunt force to her chest was listed as cause of death. I imagined her speeding down the highway, driving too fast. She had gotten a speeding ticket once in high school, but the state trooper said speed wasn’t a factor. She had jerked the steering wheel too harshly instead of driving back on the road side. He also said she was wearing her seat belt.

Every time I drive around a steep curve I think about her and wonder in those last few seconds of her life, did she cry out for her mama and daddy. But realistically she probably thought, “Mama’s going to kill me for tearing up her car!”

She was on the way to visit her friend, Christina. She had finally found that friend, a soulmate. She had her Christina as I have my Linda. She had never had that connection with a friend in high school. They were both attending Boaz State Junior College and Rosie had many, many happy weekend visits with Christina and her family. I could never thank them enough for loving her so. The whole family, even the grandparents came, to Rosie’s funeral. Christina’s younger brothers so sorrowful. Her grandfather told me he was teaching Rosie how to drive his tractor. They loved her like one of their own.

Christina was the manager at fast food restaurant and always got off late at night. Rosie planned her visit to arrive as Christina got off work. Sadly, Christina, coming home from work, saw Rosie’s car over turned down in the the pasture and sped home to tell her parents. Her father had previously worked as an EMT and he sped to the scene. He identified her body saving us a sad trip to Boaz. He told me Rosie had been thrown from the car and her body was lying on the ground beside the car, “Just like she had gotten out of car and laid down.” he said

The State Troopers requested that Christina and her parents not call us till they had time to notify us of Rosie’s death. Tom had gone to church, Thomas was home for the the weekend from the University of Alabama, and I was cooking Sunday lunch. I had put a roast in the oven when the phone rang. I turned the oven off after the phone call. I have no idea what happened to that roast.

I’ll go to my grave remembering every nuisance of the phone call. Christina’s mother told me who she was and I thanked her for all the happy weekends Rosie had spent with their family. And…then she says, “Rosie had a car wreck last night.” I asked her if Christina was in the the car and said I hoped Christina wasn’t injured. I asked to speak to Rosie and she said sadly, “Rosie’s at the funeral home.” And I say, “What’s she doing there?” And she says, with her voice breaking, “The wreck killed her!”

As the breath leaves my body, I ask her to please hold on for a moment. I scribbled “Rosie died in a car wreck,” on a scrap of paper by the phone, and stumble up the steep attic steps to wake Thomas. I’m still ashamed, 22 years later, that I couldn’t voice those words to my eldest child. He stumbled down the stairs to finish the conversation with Mrs. Hairston. She told us that Christina was so upset she begged them to call us. He thanks her. I wake my youngest son, speaking the words I couldn’t say to Thomas, and we gather in the the den watching out the window for the state trooper to come.

I’m so distraught and confused, trying to understand how my child, my only daughter, had been dead several hours and my heart had not felt the wound till that phone call. I suddenly realize we have to tell Chief before he leaves church and somehow stumbles on the news in town.

Thomas says he’ll go to church and wait for his daddy. Chief sees Thomas standing by his truck soon as he comes out of the church and realized something is terribly wrong. Thomas manages to voice the words…“Tootie had a wreck last night, Daddy. And it killed her.”

While Thomas is gone I watched a state trooper slowly drive up the driveway next door. First I thought he had the wrong house but realized he’s getting Sylvia, Chief’s sister, and her husband Charles to come with them to deliver the devastating news.

The trooper is kind, explains details about the wreck, how she died. I thank him but tell him we already were notified by the Hairstons. He says they asked them not to call our family. Chief said we should be grateful we were told of Rosie’s death that Sunday morning with a call by someone who loved her. But the words, “she’s at the funeral home,” have haunted me for 22 years.

Thomas comes home with Chief and our Episcopal rector, Marshal Craver, and they are helping Chief walk to the den steps. He’s weeping so loudly I can hear him in the house. Nothing is more heart-wrenching than hearing a grown man cry. Chief had a fierce love for his children and Rosie’s death knocked him to his knees.

When I held Chiefs hand in the hospital as he took his last breaths I knew he was reaching up for Rosie’s hand as his slipped from mine.

And I miss them every second, every minute, and every hour of every day.