Oh Alex...
I found this web site by accident and I have been reading other people’s stories of loss. I so relate to the devastation they are feeling, and my heart breaks for them too. This is not a “club” that any of us want to belong to, but here we are, all of us experiencing our own unique loss but still suffering so many of the same emotions. I don’t know if sharing my story will help me to feel a bit better, but others have said that this helps. I’m willing to give it a try, so here goes: The last thing that I said to Alex was, “See you tomorrow” and less than three hours later he was dead. Gone. Never to be seen again. His body was so damaged that it was “ill advised” for any of us to actually see him after the accident. The CHP said he died of “multiple and severe head trauma” and was dead on the scene of the accident. We had spent that day working side by side (as we had every day for almost five years). We spent an hour or so together after work chatting about life and brain storming about our next big project, and then he said he had to get going to band practice. We said goodbye and, “See you tomorrow.” I went home and made dinner. I was piddling around the house, actually painting my fingernails (how useless and mundane) around 8pm, while he was taking his last breath. His mother called me around 7:30 the next morning, and I knew something was wrong. She told me that Alex had been in an accident (in that instant I pictured him in the hospital) and then she told me that he was dead. (All I remember is literally falling to the floor, sobbing, no, no, no!) He had left band practice (sober) and was driving in the far right hand lane on the freeway where two lanes split to the right to go north and two lanes split to the left to go across the bridge to San Francisco. The witnesses say that a small SUV, driving faster than the flow of traffic in the far left lane, made a crazy swerve. The SUV cut across four lanes of traffic and hit Alex’s truck, causing it to skid and then “barrel roll” five or six times before coming to rest on it’s side. Alex had a friend in the truck with him, and that friend was badly injured in the accident. He’s had several surgeries and is emotionally traumatized, but he will live. Alex was not so lucky. The news reported a “massive traffic jam” due to an accident with fatality on I880. That’s not just a traffic jam – that’s Alex! My world stopped that day, and I don’t know when it’s going to start again. This is unthinkable! Never could I have imagined that such a normal day would be our last together.
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