When I was 4, the land lady to the apartment my parents and I were living in, Mrs. Parr, passed away. As a child, I was old enough to understand the solemnity of the adults, but too young to grasp it for myself. Filing past the half-open casket, nodding sadly to her 34-year-old son, we went and sat down in the metal folding chairs. Swinging my short chubby legs back and forth and biting my lip, I had this distracted look on my face, thinking seriously. My father asked, "What's wrong, sweetie?" He expected some genius philosophical answer about how I had grasped the meaning and finality of death. Wrinkling my nose, I looked up and whispered loudly "WHAT DID THEY DO WITH HER LEGS?" My parents about peed their pants right there in their Sunday best.
This week I have been a part of grieving another death: Danielle Petermann. I spent years in school with her, one of my 39 classmates befriending me while growing up together in our classes. In government, we used to sit in the back and whisper about Ryan, her enlisted boyfriend, as I'd chuckle over his letters. She was always singing in the halls and living it up in the choir room - singing was her greatest joy in life. In computer class, I remember killing time with her before the bell rang looking up pictures online of cute actors and singers. The clearest image I can conjure up is that of Danielle in her white stockings and black Mary Janes, manicured fingers curled over her desk edge and her uniform skirt poking out from underneath, one fake bright ring glittering on her finger, completed with her laugh. Every time I talked to her she was laughing - it was just her trademark, laughing and smiling. That was the thing my mom remembered about her when I gave her the news that Danielle had died Friday afternoon.
This is what happened on Friday as far I have found out...at Cedarville University, her brand new college, her room mate drove her out to lunch to celebrate the end of finals and the start of Christmas break. She separately called her mom and dad on their different cell phones, telling them how excited she was to be coming home and spending Christmas with them...or so the email from her mother read. Mrs. Petermann wrote "I will always be grateful for that wonderful last phone call. It will never be enough." Mrs. Petermann was waiting for her daughter at her dorm to take her home for the holidays; Danielle was running late, and then her 14-year-old daughter Claire called from home. She had gotten home from school not too long ago and policemen were at the house asking for her parents. That's when the nightmare began for the Petermanns. From what I can piece together, Danielle's room mate was driving when she slipped on a patch of ice. SLiding into oncoming cars, they were directly hit, probably T-boned, on the passenger side. Danielle died instantly. Her room mate was life flighted with liver bruising and a concussion and some other injuries, but is alive as far as I know. I do not know her name; I do not know if she is conscious; I do not know what her status is now. It might not be my place to tell you all I know, for you Tree of Life kids wondering for more information, but this entry is part of the healing process for me. And also, for those who don't go to Tree or didn't know Danielle, the details were also for your benefit; but it's a shame you never met Danielle.
My best friend Tabatha and I were so excited - Friday night was Tree of Life's basketball homecoming game. Firing trivia back and forth, screaming our delight to come back as bad-ass alumni, we pulled into the parking lot with high spirits...an hour later, we came back to the same car, devastated. Walking towards the entrance, the door banged open and a sophomore boy came out with tears streaming down his face. Not knowing him well enough to comfort him, we continued inside and met an all-encompassing scene of grief. There was a girl by the door with her boyfriend and, looking up sadly, she said, "You don't know, do you? Danielle was in a car crash on her way here and died." I blinked at her several times, and she nodded. The truth was unmistakable - everyone wore the signs of grief in their faces, in the way they walked, in the groups that whispered together with wide eyes and mortified hands cupped over gaping mouths. It couldn't be real. It couldn't. Details trickled in little by little and the disbelief was met with numbness, numbness with ache, ache with grieving. I graduated with her...I went to Costa Rica with her...I was friends with her...I wasn't that different from her...
This was a whole other world compared to Mrs. Parrs' funeral - I knew this person closely, had an upbringing very similar to hers, felt the cut of the loss as she was taken away from life before she got to live most of it. 18 years. That's shorter than we think it is. To some people, that's a lifetime. To others...it isn't nearly long enough. I reeled from the loss, walking from group to group and sharing my sadness...even spreading it. Dear Anna Starkey...I ended up being the one telling her and holding her as she experienced a sorrow that was the same as mine. I called a friend to tell her on the phone about it - every time the words came out of my mouth, it screwed the truth into my brain more and more deeply about how horribly true this was, and the heartwrenching reprecussions so many would feel so acutely. My heart broke the most when Danielle's best friend Bethani came up to me and tried not to cry. She managed to choke out "I can't believe she's gone" before collapsing into tears. Every time I had heard that line in movies I found it so cliche...not so anymore.
I couldn't stay for the game and the thinly-veiled sadness in the almost-festive atmosphere; sobbing with Tabatha in her car, we came back inside, for a few minutes at least. My dad called to ask how the game was going - I told him what happened and that I was going to have my boyfriend pick me up from the school. Calling Dave, I had drive me home and distract me because Tabatha had already settled herself into the crowd and I simply could not settle. We went to Starbucks and went Christmas shopping...normal stuff that soothed the raw wound, somehow. We came back home and talked with my dad about it; my brother met me at the door with a hug and this wonderfully compassionate card on my bedroom door. Talking late into the night, flipping through my senior yearbook for pictures of Danielle, I realized how close to home this had hit my dad. Danielle was 18 and had a sister who was 14. My sister is 13. I saw the flicker in his eyes that showed how he had relived this nightmare in his mind with me in the car instead of Danielle.
I didn't want Dave to go at 3 that morning, but I couldn't figure out why. It wasn't until I had sunken down into my beanbag chair and was staring wide-eyed at myself in the mirror that I figured it out...I didn't want to deal with this grief by myself. I wanted someone else to react to it, someone else to hear about it, have someone else for me to comfort...but finally, there was only me left to comfort. God gave me a peace that surprised me, but I know that it will be disrupted by the upcoming funeral, whenever that is. That's when the fact of the matter will be burned into my mind so clearly I will not be able to have a shadow of a hope that this is all a dream, that this beautiful 18-year-old classmate of mine really is gone forever in the blink of an eye. It's surreal. But when that sinks in...it'll be final. But I will never be able to get over the thought of the pain the Petermanns are suffering. I love Claire, the younger daughter, like a little sister of my own. Sweet beautiful Claire. I prayed hardest for her, that this would drive her towards God and not away. I need to tell her that the times of my life I was closest to God was when I driven there by the tragedies in my life...and how sweet, and bitter, those times were. How much I matured and growed in those times...how it made me a a strong person I couldn't have been without them...how it helped me to be a comfort for others in Pain...how you receive the most amazing love from every direction when you are in your worst moments and are the most angry and bitter and suffering.
I miss you and your laugh already, Danielle. You better be shaming that angel choir with that voice of yours. We'll see you again sooner than we think.
This week I have been a part of grieving another death: Danielle Petermann. I spent years in school with her, one of my 39 classmates befriending me while growing up together in our classes. In government, we used to sit in the back and whisper about Ryan, her enlisted boyfriend, as I'd chuckle over his letters. She was always singing in the halls and living it up in the choir room - singing was her greatest joy in life. In computer class, I remember killing time with her before the bell rang looking up pictures online of cute actors and singers. The clearest image I can conjure up is that of Danielle in her white stockings and black Mary Janes, manicured fingers curled over her desk edge and her uniform skirt poking out from underneath, one fake bright ring glittering on her finger, completed with her laugh. Every time I talked to her she was laughing - it was just her trademark, laughing and smiling. That was the thing my mom remembered about her when I gave her the news that Danielle had died Friday afternoon.
This is what happened on Friday as far I have found out...at Cedarville University, her brand new college, her room mate drove her out to lunch to celebrate the end of finals and the start of Christmas break. She separately called her mom and dad on their different cell phones, telling them how excited she was to be coming home and spending Christmas with them...or so the email from her mother read. Mrs. Petermann wrote "I will always be grateful for that wonderful last phone call. It will never be enough." Mrs. Petermann was waiting for her daughter at her dorm to take her home for the holidays; Danielle was running late, and then her 14-year-old daughter Claire called from home. She had gotten home from school not too long ago and policemen were at the house asking for her parents. That's when the nightmare began for the Petermanns. From what I can piece together, Danielle's room mate was driving when she slipped on a patch of ice. SLiding into oncoming cars, they were directly hit, probably T-boned, on the passenger side. Danielle died instantly. Her room mate was life flighted with liver bruising and a concussion and some other injuries, but is alive as far as I know. I do not know her name; I do not know if she is conscious; I do not know what her status is now. It might not be my place to tell you all I know, for you Tree of Life kids wondering for more information, but this entry is part of the healing process for me. And also, for those who don't go to Tree or didn't know Danielle, the details were also for your benefit; but it's a shame you never met Danielle.
My best friend Tabatha and I were so excited - Friday night was Tree of Life's basketball homecoming game. Firing trivia back and forth, screaming our delight to come back as bad-ass alumni, we pulled into the parking lot with high spirits...an hour later, we came back to the same car, devastated. Walking towards the entrance, the door banged open and a sophomore boy came out with tears streaming down his face. Not knowing him well enough to comfort him, we continued inside and met an all-encompassing scene of grief. There was a girl by the door with her boyfriend and, looking up sadly, she said, "You don't know, do you? Danielle was in a car crash on her way here and died." I blinked at her several times, and she nodded. The truth was unmistakable - everyone wore the signs of grief in their faces, in the way they walked, in the groups that whispered together with wide eyes and mortified hands cupped over gaping mouths. It couldn't be real. It couldn't. Details trickled in little by little and the disbelief was met with numbness, numbness with ache, ache with grieving. I graduated with her...I went to Costa Rica with her...I was friends with her...I wasn't that different from her...
This was a whole other world compared to Mrs. Parrs' funeral - I knew this person closely, had an upbringing very similar to hers, felt the cut of the loss as she was taken away from life before she got to live most of it. 18 years. That's shorter than we think it is. To some people, that's a lifetime. To others...it isn't nearly long enough. I reeled from the loss, walking from group to group and sharing my sadness...even spreading it. Dear Anna Starkey...I ended up being the one telling her and holding her as she experienced a sorrow that was the same as mine. I called a friend to tell her on the phone about it - every time the words came out of my mouth, it screwed the truth into my brain more and more deeply about how horribly true this was, and the heartwrenching reprecussions so many would feel so acutely. My heart broke the most when Danielle's best friend Bethani came up to me and tried not to cry. She managed to choke out "I can't believe she's gone" before collapsing into tears. Every time I had heard that line in movies I found it so cliche...not so anymore.
I couldn't stay for the game and the thinly-veiled sadness in the almost-festive atmosphere; sobbing with Tabatha in her car, we came back inside, for a few minutes at least. My dad called to ask how the game was going - I told him what happened and that I was going to have my boyfriend pick me up from the school. Calling Dave, I had drive me home and distract me because Tabatha had already settled herself into the crowd and I simply could not settle. We went to Starbucks and went Christmas shopping...normal stuff that soothed the raw wound, somehow. We came back home and talked with my dad about it; my brother met me at the door with a hug and this wonderfully compassionate card on my bedroom door. Talking late into the night, flipping through my senior yearbook for pictures of Danielle, I realized how close to home this had hit my dad. Danielle was 18 and had a sister who was 14. My sister is 13. I saw the flicker in his eyes that showed how he had relived this nightmare in his mind with me in the car instead of Danielle.
I didn't want Dave to go at 3 that morning, but I couldn't figure out why. It wasn't until I had sunken down into my beanbag chair and was staring wide-eyed at myself in the mirror that I figured it out...I didn't want to deal with this grief by myself. I wanted someone else to react to it, someone else to hear about it, have someone else for me to comfort...but finally, there was only me left to comfort. God gave me a peace that surprised me, but I know that it will be disrupted by the upcoming funeral, whenever that is. That's when the fact of the matter will be burned into my mind so clearly I will not be able to have a shadow of a hope that this is all a dream, that this beautiful 18-year-old classmate of mine really is gone forever in the blink of an eye. It's surreal. But when that sinks in...it'll be final. But I will never be able to get over the thought of the pain the Petermanns are suffering. I love Claire, the younger daughter, like a little sister of my own. Sweet beautiful Claire. I prayed hardest for her, that this would drive her towards God and not away. I need to tell her that the times of my life I was closest to God was when I driven there by the tragedies in my life...and how sweet, and bitter, those times were. How much I matured and growed in those times...how it made me a a strong person I couldn't have been without them...how it helped me to be a comfort for others in Pain...how you receive the most amazing love from every direction when you are in your worst moments and are the most angry and bitter and suffering.
I miss you and your laugh already, Danielle. You better be shaming that angel choir with that voice of yours. We'll see you again sooner than we think.
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