Two weeks later, on a Tuesday, my father had called to say he was taking her to visit her mother—my grandmother Eleanor—at her assisted living facility. He’d been promising this visit for months. Apparently, he’d finally found time in his schedule.They never came back.
A truck driver on I-95 fell asleep at the wheel. The police called it instant. They said my parents didn’t suffer, which was either true or a kindness, and I’ve never quite decided which.
I was working the night shift at Maplewood when I got the call. I remember walking to the stairwell because I couldn’t breathe in the hallway. I remember dropping the phone on the concrete steps. I remember the Connecticut State Police still on the line asking if I was there.
I don’t remember driving home. I remember the smell of my mother’s lavender garden at three in the morning. I remember thinking she would never tend it again.The funeral was four days later at St. Andrews Episcopal, the church where my parents got married forty years earlier.
My brother gave the eulogy. He talked about our father for seven minutes. He mentioned our mother’s name exactly twice.
