Been sitting in my reading chair this morning, watching the glorious morning come alive, thinking how the month of March has always been a roller coaster month of emotions for me. Our daughter, Rosalyn Louise, named after her grandmothers, died in a car accident on March 17, Saint Patrick’s Day, of 2002. Today is the 24nd anniversary of her death. Chief and I would have been married 45 years on March 28, and Chief’s 91st birthday is March 29. I take heart though that Chief and Rosie are together in heaven. And I take heart in the beautiful awakening Spring.

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 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 onto the highway. 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 spend the spring break week with 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 children.

Rosie was 17 years old, finding her place in the world, when the car accident ended her life. She was navigating her freshman year at college. Rosie’s death is still the first and last thing on my mind each day. You never “get over” the pain of losing a child you just learn in your own way and in your own time how to put one foot in front of the other and keep walking through life. You also learn after many, many years how to live with the pain. The grief never goes away, you never get over it. The grief just becomes quieter. You not only have to mourn the child but all the wishes you had for that child, all the family moments that child will be absent from. The pain is still just as fresh as the pain of that Sunday morning phone call telling me of her death. Losing a child is one of the most traumatic events a parent can experience. I think Eric Miller sums up a child’s death so accurately — “I feel the weight of these years she will never have and they may yet crush me.”

I’ve been sitting here in the lady den for a while now, watching all the birds and squirrels frolicking around in the bamboo, pondering on what Rosie never got to experience as she entered her young womanhood, cut short at 17 years. I realize now when Rosie died I selfishly thought of all the things that her passing would take away from me and our family — the loss of grandchildren, the aunt taken away from her brother’s children, the mother-daughter shopping trips, all the holidays passing without her, not being able to watch her graduate from college, watch her walk down the aisle as a bride, watch her hold her first born child — and I didn’t think about the things she never got to experience as she became a young woman.

She was a freshman in college so she’ll never have the satisfaction of having a college degree in her hand. She’ll never fall in love, never break a heart, or have her heart broken. She’ll never marry, never decide to have children. She’ll never lie in the arms of a man who loves and cherishes her. She’ll never know her oldest brother’s children or share secrets with her little brother. She’ll never party and frolic in the ocean with her girlfriends. She missing all the family first cousin shenanigans. She’ll never have a social media account to rant and rave on. She would have loved Facebook. She’ll never experience the excitement of her first car or her own home. She’ll never know the outpouring of love and sympathy from family and friends that our family experienced after her death. She’d be so proud of the garden playground at St. James Episcopal Church in Alexander City dedicated in her memory.

I’ve always worried that Rosie would be the relative years from now no one can identify in old family photos. I’m so glad my grandchildren know her from talking about her with me and Stewart and their mama and daddy. They will will remember her from seeing her childhood photos and will identify her in the old family photos for their grandchildren one day. When my grandson Alexander was a little boy, he told me, “Aunt Rosie must have been really happy cause she’s always smiling in all her pictures.” So sweet to hear him say that. She was happy, always whistling or singing as a child.

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 hand slipped from mine. And I miss them every second, every minute, and every hour of every day.

“Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.” — Unknown