March 12, 2018
11:18 p.m.

It started with seeing a Facebook post. The young wife declared that she would love him forever and didn't know how she would live without him.

No, I thought. They just had a little tiff, that's all. He's fine.

Then came the first of many condolences.

Uh...

Denial. Stage one.

Besides, SHE didn't actually say he was...you know...dead.

People offer condolences over marital spats and stuff. Right?

And it would blow over, because--heck! Match made in heaven!

Lots of questions. What happened? Was everything okay?

And WHAT HAPPENED????

So...okay, clearly something has happened. I don't know what, but he's not here anymore, and someone says he passed and someone else says an accident, and this is someone I sang to when he was a baby, and I want to know what has gone wrong!

No one answers the question, and night has fallen hours ago, and I'm just going to have to wait.

That was Saturday.

Yesterday, his page and his wife's page are full of condolences, thoughts and prayers and no real answers about what happened.

Just the day before he had posted pictures of a trip he was on. It looked like he was having a good time.

Now there were lots of pictures of him with his baby boy and his wife taken over the last few months and comments about how he was going to be missed.

In the midst of all this, we have a birthday party to attend for my youngest grandchild, now a two-year-old, and since no answers are forthcoming, we try to have a good time for the sake of the kids.

But of course, that nagging question remains: what happened? Did anything REALLY happen? Was it all a mistake? (Please, God!)

By the time we got home last evening, I knew I was going to have to reach out to family members and ask the dreaded question, even though no one else had posted anything on their pages.

Dang.

It was true.

My nephew was killed on Saturday. He was struck by a car after leaving the bus he was traveling in.

This is all I know, even now. My son wants to know how, by whom, where he was, all the details, and I probably will want to know these things, too, at some point, but right now all that matters is that this young man is gone.

He leaves behind a wife and baby boy. His mother, my sister-in-law, is devastated, and going through her own hell of denial right now. No one can believe that such a thing has happened.

There will be more information shared soon, I've no doubt, and I fervently wish I was able to jump in a plane and go to Mexico to be with the family. That is not likely, but I will there in spirit. I already am. I can't get him off my mind, and all I can see is this memory of a photo I once took of a little boy in a maroon sweater, grinning up at me.

I can't find the photo. I don't know if it even still exists; it may have been one of the many casualties of a long-ago house fire. But I see it in my mind, so clearly that I have more than half convinced myself that it's here in my house somewhere and I need to find it and get it to his mother.

I'm feeling a bit wrecked.

Oh, dear me, how his mother must be feeling!

There will follow a proper tribute, but I can't wrap my head around this just yet. My heart aches for his family, for his wife and baby, for my children and all his other cousins, and especially for his parents, who should never have to live to see their child be...discontinued.

I'm sad.

I lay awake all last night trying to compose the proper thing to say to my sister-in-law--in Spanish. I have enough trouble choking out words of condolence in my native language, because it is certainly not something I ever want to have to do, and today I needed to do it in Spanish, because I love this family and I want them to know that I care.

Saying you're sorry in any language is brutal. Not saying it; having circumstances dictate the need to say it--brutal.

Dear woman, mother of a lost son, I am so sorry. I love you. I'm thinking of you. I'm thinking of all the family and friends, and wishing him Godspeed. May he fly high.
_________________________________________________________________________________

And that's all I have to say about that, at least for tonight.

Where could that photo be? I know she'd like to have it...

Bye.