December 21st, 2012

I can’t remember the last time he called me “son.” The most words he’s said to me at one encounter is probably twenty. And the number of times he’s said he loved me is definitely zero. It’s been eleven years since the accident, I’m seventeen now. Eleven years of grieving and mourning and eleven years of pain and suffering. Tomorrow will mark exactly eleven years since I killed my mom and took away the one thing my father loved in this world.
December 21st, 2012


We live in Pittsburgh and it was around Christmas, my dad’s favorite time of the year. I was six years old, and my best friend was my mom. To this day I’m not afraid to admit it. In fact, she still is. A few days before Christmas Eve, we were outside playing in the snow together, making snow angels and snowmen. I can still hear her screaming laughter ringing in my head when I pounced on her with snowballs in my hands. She picked me up and spun me around, carrying me inside to make us two warm cups of hot chocolate to go, snow still stuck to our sweaters.

“We,” she smiled, “are going to get daddy a Christmas present.”

She grabbed my hand and we gingerly maneuvered our way to the car. “Mommy,” I stammered, “It’s slippery.”

“Don’t be scared, baby, just hold my hand and you’ll be okay!” She strapped me in and off we went.

“Mommy, where are we going? What are we getting Daddy?”

“I don’t know yet, Michael. Right now I’m just trying to see through the snow.”

“I know, but Mommy I want to know what Santa is getting me. Does Santa get you something, Mommy?”

“Yes, he does.” I felt the concentration in her voice while she tried to keep traction between her tires and the ice.

“I know, but Mommy why are we getting Daddy something if Santa will?

“Michael, hold still!” she screamed.

I remember the fear in her voice and the horrific scream that escaped her mouth when she swerved off the road. All was a blur from the time the ambulance took me away to the time I woke up in the hospital with my dad standing over me.

“Where’s Mommy?” was the first thing to come out of my mouth.

It was a war between us and the weather, and we didn’t win. The snow piled upon the dash to where my mother could not see the patch of ice draping the curve of the road we were turning on, leading us straight into a seventy foot oak. The force of contact tossed her through the dash directly into the tree, and flung my car seat into the back of the passenger’s. My mom died instantly, yet the only injury I was left with was a throbbing wrist. It was up to my dad to explain to me that Mommy was Heaven with the angels now. After my six year old mind took this into account, I cried so hard and don’t remember stopping. I had to have stopped when the anesthesiologist put me under, but I woke up from surgery on my wrist crying harder than before. My cries turned into heaves which turned into deep breaths, and eventually, I fell asleep.

I woke up to my dad sitting in the chair next to my hospital bed. His hands cradled his head, his forehead resting on his knees. He heard my sheets rustle and immediately awoke from his trance. His eyes twinkled when he saw me, or maybe they were just wet from crying. He scooted closer to me and rested his hand upon my wrist.

“How you feeling, kid?” his voiced cooed at me.

“Okay,” I replied groggily.

“How’s the wrist? Any better?”

“It still hurts. So does my head.”

“We should’ve gotten you checked out for a concussion. You hit that seat pretty hard.”

“I don’t really remember what happened.”

“Do you think you could at least try telling me what happened before the accident?”

“Mommy was driving to get your present and we hit a tree.” His soft expression turned to ice when I said “your present.”

“I’m sure she didn’t just lose control of the wheel; that’s not like her.”

“She didn’t, we were turning and slipped on some ice!”

“Was she not focusing? Did she seem different than usual?”


Looking back, I realized he was trying to come up with an excuse for why it happened. At least if she was drunk, he had his answer.

“No, she was the same as usual. She was trying really hard to focus, though.”

“Was she distracted?” He was no longer asking me questions, but demanding answers.

“Only when we were talking.”

“What were you saying to her that was just so important, Michael?”

“We were talking about your present. Your Christmas present.”

His face twisted into one that did not belong to my father. He held his gaze for a few seconds, and then shuffled out of the room, mumbling a few words to himself.

The accident happened eleven years ago today. December 21st, 2001, and today is December 21st, 2012. Growing up from when I was about 7 to 11 was the hardest, because I didn’t have my own father to grieve with. He sent me to a psychiatrist, which was probably the one thing that kept me sane. I learned about everything else from the few friends I had in middle school. I’m now a senior in high school and I just walked in to the house from my last day before the break. My break will most likely be spent sitting in my room watching reruns of Happy Days. I don’t drink or smoke or anything like that. I can’t stand the thought of disappointing my father any more than I already have. I don’t sleep around, either. If my mom was still alive, I know exactly what she would say about that.

My dad comes home from his office job at about six every night, usually with Chinese take out or a pizza. Or sometimes I just make a peanut butter sandwich. Regardless, we don’t eat meals together, for that would require us to talk.


It’s 6:30 now, and I’m making myself a bowl of cereal. I don’t know where my dad is, or when he’s coming home. I could send him a text, but seeing my name on his phone probably makes his stomach churn. By 10:30, I give up and go to sleep. He hasn’t come home, but I know he will. Even though he hates me with every bone in his body, he still cares for me. I’m a product of his wife’s, and he would never do anything to hurt her. Even though neither of us says it, we both remember what day it is. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want to see my face.
December 22, 2012

I wake up to the smell of brewing coffee. He’s home, I think to myself. I walk downstairs and give him a nod.

“Are you out of school, now?”

“Yes.”

I wonder why he would even ask me that. Yesterday was eleven years since she was killed, and today is eleven years since he found out who was responsible. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get the look out of my head when he asked what we were talking about; when he found out we were talking, that it was me distracting her from the roads. It’s not worth spending my time thinking about though, I decide. So I go back upstairs with a coffee and finish up my last college application.


December 23rd, 2012

By ten-thirty, I can smell the queso all the way from my room. There must be a game on today, I thought. I used to be into sports, just like a lot of other six year old boys. My dad and I would go to football games, basketball games, anything and everything we could get tickets for. It was “our” thing. It never crossed my mind to sit and enjoy a game with him anymore.

I mosey down the stairs to see my father sprawled out on the couch, ESPN already turned on. Someone’s enjoying his break, I think to myself.

“I’m going for a drive.” I blurt.

“Dressed like that?”

I hadn’t even noticed I was still wearing plaid pajama pants and an old t-shirt.

“Yeah. It doesn’t matter.”

I grab a jacket and close the door behind me. It takes only twenty steps to the car and I was already covered in falling snow. It’s not easy to trudge through the two and a half feet blanketing the ground wearing house shoes, either. I unlock the car and hop in hastily. It’s my tradition to visit the tree that we crashed into every day before Christmas Eve. I know the route by heart: Pulling out of the driveway, I drive down the road and turn before the next block, pass the elementary school, and turn right two more times. It’s the second right turn that kills. Literally. As I near closer to the tree, there was something white right in the middle of the trunk. It was probably just a buildup of snow, I thought, and I didn’t think anything of it. The closer I got, the clearer it became. It was a piece of paper stapled to the tree. Anger began bubbling up inside of me. Who has the nerve to mess with my mother’s tree? I put the car in park and hopped out, drowning in the pool of snow. I march my way through and came face to face with a picture of myself; of my family, to be specific. My mother loved to scrapbook, and as a six year old kid, I hated taking pictures. Looking back, though, I’m glad we have so many family photos. This one, however, was candid. We were sitting in our family room, Christmas of 1999. I was sitting on my mom’s lap, my dad’s arm around her. We were laughing at something, God only knows what. The twinkle in my mother’s eye was unmistakable. I haven’t seen my dad smile like that in years.

The words captioning the picture break me out of my trance. “In memory of my wife, Cara, and my relationship with my son, Michael. RIP- 12/21/01-12/22/01.” Tears spilled out of the brim of my eyes. Immediately, it all made sense. My father wasn’t blaming me all this time. He blamed himself.

I take one last glance at the picture before carefully removing the staples and putting the paper in my jacket pocket. I trudge back to the car and tried to process everything I just stumbled upon.

The memory of our encounter in the hospital floods back into my mind. When I told him that we were going to get his present; that we were talking about what he was getting for Christmas. When he walked out of the room without saying another word. He blamed himself for her death. Like father like son.

I come home and walk in the living room, expecting to see my dad still be lounging on the couch watching the game. His back was turned, and his shoulders were shaking. I walk up to him and pull the paper out of my jacket pocket and set it in front of him. He looked up at me with red eyes, and I see he’s looking at one of my mother’s many scrapbooks. I don’t have time to say any words before I feel his arms embrace me for the first physical contact we had shared in eleven years. I feel his tears spill onto my shirt.

“I love you, son,” he muffles through a sob.

“I love you too, dad.”
August 3rd, 2013, 4 hours before departure

My first class at the University of Southern California is in six days. I’ve packed up my stuff and I’m ready to begin my new life. Closing my last suitcase, I hear a knock at my door.

“Michael, can I talk to you?” My dad walks in my room and sits on the foot of my sheet-less bed.

“Sure, dad, what’s up?”

“I just want you to know that I’m proud of you. You’ve made it so far, about eleven years, without the role of a parent. When your mom died, I should’ve stepped it up and tried to play the role of both parents, but I shut you out and gave you nothing. I felt responsible for taking her away from you. And yet, you’re still an amazing kid who is going to one of the best schools in the country. I’m so proud of you, son. And I’m sorry.”

“Thanks, dad. That means a lot. And for what it’s worth, I loved her too. And I still do.”

“I know you do, Michael. I know you do.”

Getting over the loss of a loved one is one of the hardest things for a human to accomplish. I blamed myself, and so did my father. Without one another, it wasn’t easy. My teenage years were a mess. Our relationship was faltered, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t have the chance to rebuild it. I don’t think twice before sitting with my dad and watching a Steelers game, and we don’t let anything come in the way of a family dinner. Even without my mother alive, we’re still a family.
August 3rd, 2013, 5 minutes before departure

I start my first class in a week, and the idea of college still scares me. Walking to my gate and looking at my dad one last time before the first day of my new life, the words belonging to the soothing voice of my mother replayed in my head over and over again: “Don’t be scared, baby; just hold my hand and you’ll be okay.”