A Family Broken
by Cynthia
15. Two years later my Aunt, Uncle and cousin (also age 15) died in a terrible motor vehicle accident where six others also died. My aunt and uncle were traveling from AZ to back east somewhere to visit relatives during their summer vacation. From what I have heard, the car was traveling in OK. and there was a brush fire that had created a lot of smoke on the highway and someone panicked and stopped their car. This created a car pileup of many vehicles. A tractor trailer hit the rear car and some of the cars started on fire. My relatives died at the scene and were burned beyond recognition. The youngest child in the car, there were the parents and two cousins present, survived. Her mother had taken her out of the car and placed her beside the highway and went back to her car to try and help her unconcious husband and son. That is when the tractor trailer hit and she did not get out alive. I had grown up with my cousins. They were on my father's side, his two brothers lived in AZ. They and we were all very close. We had outdoor BBQ's around the swimming pools, all the holidays were spent together, the familie's adults played poker at each others houses and we kids played together. My cousins were all younger than I by a couple of years. My cousins seemed like brothers and sisters to me. The family was never the same after this. There were no more card "parties." No family holidays. The losses were immense, not just the losses of the people. What was hard for me as a young person was I lost that feeling you have when you are young of feelng immortal. In thinkng death only comes to older people. I had to think about death, and I wondered where my little brother went/was. It frightened me. And our family was a "no-talk" family. My brothers death was rarely spoken of. I was never "talked" to about it. I just had to deal with the pain the best I could on my own. I did not fare well. Around five years or so after these events I began having anxiety attacks and panic attacks whenever I was out driving on a trip. Usually they started when I was in the middle of the desert. It was an overwhelming fear that came out of nowhere. So long story longer, I stopped traveling out of town. I just couldn't do it without the fear of more panic. I became trapped inside the boundaries of the city. It didn't completely stop the panic attacks. I would wake up in the middle of the night shaking and panicking. Free-floating anxiety could hit me at any time any place. I of course, tried therapy, medication, all of that. Was told I had PTSD and other diagnoses, which helped somewhat with the panic attacks. But I was trapped within the city boundaries for over 25 years. I also had marriages that failed. Relationships were very difficult for me. I remember hating to hear the phone ring because it brought such terrible painful news, and it scared me also when it would ring. I have found healing, and it took over 20 years to finally begin the process of getting out of "hell." I was at the bottom of bottoms and asked for help from a higher power. And I am not here to promote any book, or spiritual practice, religion, etc. It is just what happened for me. For about a week or so after asking for help I kept hearing about a book called "A Course In Miracles." And it was through studying it and my own mind beginning to understand things differently, that I could finally start releasing my fears. I have come a long way, I went across the country by car with my dog in 2002. All the way to Virginia and back. I can travel anywhere now that I want and have little or no fear. The desert can sometimes bug me a little but I go through it anyway. And living in AZ anywhere you travel you go through a desert. There is no way to understand why awful things happen to people. My husband today has never had a death in his family except grandparents. It is hard for someone to relate to your experience they haven't had. And the aftermath of such tragedies, few can relate to. It can be really hard, but there is hope and healing if we choose to look and ask for it. And then it is a process and does take time. The memories never die and the love for those we loved and loss never does either. As someone said "yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift and that's why it's called the present.
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