He put a phone in his daughter’s coffin. Then he was shocked to open the video when a parent has to bury a child. It’S one of the worst times in life. They say parents are supposed to pass on before the children Don had to accept that his darling little girl was gone. There had been a terrible accident.
She was designated driver for her friends that night they were being responsible and not driving. While they were impaired. What was not expected was the drunk driver sitting behind the wheel of a loaded. Semi truck Kylie had been driving cautiously as it had been raining earlier that evening, she and her friends had gone to a going away party for a friend who was moving to California. Terry had been awarded a great position with a tech company out in Silicon Valley.
He had gone to school for that field and was so excited when the company called him to tell him he had been hired. They had all men at the beach. Well, it’s what they called a beach. It was a secluded area on the back side of a lake. They had strung up some heavy duty.
Rope off the tree branch cleared an area of grass near the shore that gave them a shady section. This made it’s safe to have some fires going on to help when people started to get cold, they spent time swimming and even grilled, some burgers and bratwursts. These young adults were doing everything they had been taught to do. They made sure they were not in a public location. They made sure each group had a driver, so no one would risk an accident.
Alberta had told her father how much work they had put into this, so that they could have a perfect party that everyone would remember and how they all had celebrated the success of their friend. These kids or young adults had known each other for so many years. They considered themselves to be a great big family, that’s exactly how they all acted too. They protected each other took turns being the safe driver, the one nobody had to worry about when the party had started to wind down Kylie and her group headed out for her car. She was going to take each of them to their home and make sure they got inside.
She was driving less than the speed limit because of the wet roads, as they hit a long stretch of straight road. They saw that there was a truck coming Sam, the other side, Alberta kept to the side of the road. That is something she always had done. She preferred to move as far over as she could to allow the other vehicle enough room in the blink of an eye. None of Alberta’s, cautious, driving, mattered.
Everything seemed fine until the last second, the truck came across the center line and, at the same high rate of speed, ran right into the driver’s door. The other four in Alberta’s car had some injuries. One spent a couple weeks in the hospital with a broken hip. The others were minor injuries. Luckily, Dan, however, Alberta did not make it.
There was no chance for her. The officers on the scene told Don that it had been quick. She did not suffer due to the needed criminal investigation. Sam could plan a funeral, but it would take a couple of weeks before they were allowed to release Alberta’s body back to Sam for the actual burial. Those two weeks were hell for Don and sadness, and depression felt overwhelming he spent so much of that time.
Reminiscing about Kylie’s life and all the memories they had made together. He recalled her swimming lessons, the first day of preschool, then kindergarten and finally, first grade he recalled how good of a student she was on the honor roll. None of this made sense to Don why his little girl she did not deserve this. So many people were calling and stomping over at the house. He finally just shut off his phone.
He could not constantly listen to all these people who loved Alberta. They were talking about memories, how sorry they were for his laws. They did not understand. This was so much more than just a loss. This was his life torn apart.
His baby was gone. She never had a chance at life. She never fulfilled her dreams, her goals. He did not want these people to tell him how sorry they were for him. He wanted everyone to understand that this truck driver ruined Alberta’s life.
He took away the bright star that was going to change the world. The day finally came to say his final goodbye to his baby girl, his shining star, the church was packed. It seemed that he put the phone under coffin the same phone that caused her death. However, there another surprise waited him. The whole town was there.
This was understandable. Alberta was a friend to everyone she met. She would help anyone who asked for help at her young age of 18. She was working a full-time job, volunteering in a senior care facility, and also at the local Humane Society. Her love for others, the caring she showed did not stop at just the humans of the world.
I say this because the Humane Society actually came to the funeral of a few of the animals that Kylie had taken so strongly to. She was the person that worked hard to bring these tiny creatures back to health when they were brought in near death. The minister actually made mention of this during his speech at the funeral. He had never been part of a funeral where so many four-legged friends had come to share memories. This did bring a round of laughter which helped somewhat the following days.
Sam made an effort to return to work. He did succeed at working a few half days. It was too difficult. Still. He made himself begin to attend grief groups for parents.
After a couple of weeks, he decided that he could not keep listening to all these voicemails left on his phone. He decided he would listen to a few each day. Sam was going to be stressful, but he knew he had to go through them at this point he also walked into Alberta’s bedroom. For the first time there was no way he was removing anything he planned on just cleaning it up. All of her belongings were staying..
Put her clothes, her posters on the wall, her makeup and personal stuff was not being removed. He did pick up the clothes that were lying on the floor. He decided to watch them fold them and just place them on the bed. He realized it was going to look like he was planning on her return like he knew she would be home at any time. Those issues were going to take time.
He began to return calls from those that had left messages and had heard that time, heals all wounds, but there was no way this wound was going to heal completely. He spent a lot of time speaking with his Minister, the people at the grief, support and his family. He was slowly coming to an acceptance of the situation. That sounds wrong, that he had accepted that Alberta was gone and he was not coming home. However, part of his mind insisted she was just offered a job that she had moved to another location for work, but he was slowly coming to grips with the reality of the entire situation.
He did not feel bad for taking his time. He took this new life at a pace that he could handle. He did not have to try and cover up his pain. It’S a strong, it’s a strong enough person for that. One fact that he finally came to accept was that Kylie was with her mother again years before Sam and Sarah had lost his wife and her and her mother to cancer had come to take her at a far too young of an age.
That was definitely a truly painful time, but lost the burial and saying goodbye to someone he called his soul mate the love of his life. At that time, the hardest part for Sam was helping Sarah through the process. This meant she attended therapy and had support group. Sarah had slit for a period of time, her school work and her behavior. It was likely all part of the grieving process.
Sarah had gone. Sarah had lost one of the most important people in her life. It was expected and Alberta pulled herself out of it with the help of her father and her friends. The church group supporting during the time when her mother was also sick, Alberta had to watch her gradually decline. There is nothing that could be done to extend her life any longer.
The doctors had done everything they could. They had hospice at home. This way, Sarah and Sam could spend the entire time with her before she passed. This gave him time to talk to discuss what she had wanted to happen at the funeral, how she wanted them to move on, to continue life and to rejoice in the fact that when she did pass on, she was at peace. She was no longer in pain with a sudden realization Don knew he had to do the same thing he had to pull himself through this process.
He was already part of grief, support for her parents who lost a child. He spoke with his Minister anytime. He needed honestly this pain he felt was somewhat different. This time, as his wife was slowly slipping away, they had the time together to come to the understanding that her time was almost done. Losing Alberta was not like that.
Alberta’S death was sudden, no warning no time to plan and prepare themselves for it. It just happened, and that was so unfair. The minister kept telling him that it was all in God’s hands. He could not make sense of that. God would not allow some guy to kill his little girl like that.
He was not seeing it. As God’s plan was to bring a new Angel to Heaven at a certain time. It was not that God arranged the death as it happened. Just the taking of an Angel to heaven now Alberta was reunited with her mother and should at least find some peace in that there had been so many years that they were not together. So if he should Rejoice, if there was a heaven and that the two women in his life were celebrating their reunion, yet he knew that all this free time was causing him to dwell on his loss constantly.
So he made the decision to get back to life. He had to come to rely on hack days at work. He also knew that this was affecting his performance at work and the higher-ups were beginning to worry. He would never be back at his top performance. He made arrangements that he would be back to work full-time.
The following week, he then set up an appointment for a three-day retreat. The retreat was meant to help him with his grieving and the immediate pain that he was having a difficult time getting passed. It turned out that once he accepted his girls were together again, it became a little bit easier. Sam grabbed his phone determined to get through all these voicemails. It had been a couple of weeks
It was time to start listening and after the first ones he felt himself slipping backwards. He forced himself to listen to more. He responded to many of them by text messages. It just seemed easier. After a couple of hours listening and texting, he was sure that people would understand if he did not respond.
Many of these voicemails have been the same people checking in on him. Many were his family members as wife’s family, just asking how he was doing telling him to call at any time they were there for him and they wanted him to know this. He decided that he was going to just delete the remaining messages. The process of listening to each one was really difficult. It was like the accident had just happened, and it was all fresh again, so he hit delete after selecting them all.
His phone took care of the rest, except there was one message that remained: it was listed as a new message, but it was from Alberta. He had listened to her message already was sent a few days before the accident. Why did his phone not delete it? He knew that sometimes his phone would make him listen to old messages before it allowed them to be deleted. It was from his baby girl.
He did not think he could listen to her voice again. He did not want to play it at the same time. He thought maybe it was a good thing for his phone to mess up and not delete the message. Sam was sure the time would come that he would be ready to hear Alberta’s voice on his phone. He was not sure that this was the time, so he carefully locked the message there was still reading through new and he shut his phone off then restarted it thinking that the operating system just needed to reboot his phone..
He left the phone on the table as he went to make some dinner. Even that was difficult. People get used to cooking for a certain amount of people that for Don went from three people to two, and now was just him. He went back to the table with his plate of food and looked at his phone. The notification was still there that a new video from Alberta.
He was not. He was not ready for this, but he knew he had to Hey Dad. I just wanted to let you know that why I’m okay and I’m home now? How could this be? It was a message from Alberta all right, but how could this be?.
How could it still be marked as new? Was this a message from his Angel to let him know she was okay and she was at home Alberta in heaven. The world and God definitely works in mysterious ways, and this was one that Sam would never be able to explain. The timing was perfect. Listening to this message was going to help Don heal at least gave him a sense of Peace.
At this point, he was truly thankful that he was a Christian Sam was able to move forward day by day. He did return to work full time and regained his full performance in time. He actually found himself considering relocating to be closer to his job. That would definitely take some more thought and consideration. The house held so much for him, but still he also knew memories would still be there.
It didn’t matter where he was physically. He would still have those memories to deal with grief or sadness. You need to do something requiring planning and thinking or building something you need action, requiring mental involvement, doing engaging tasks and not just mechanical work, be too absorbed in your tasks intensely and passionately as if you have to build the best at any moment there can be
