Getting on without Casey

This past week was as stressful a week professionally as I have had for many years. I had a securities case go to a three day arbitration, Di was away in Colorado and the night before the cross exam of the defendant's expert and the closings, little Hamlet, one of our rescue cats, had a bladder stone/blockage and needed to get treatment on an emergency basis. I wound up preparing for the next day at the vet's office until almost 1:00 a.m. After the case was over I was physically drained . It was great to not have to focus on the case as I had done for most of the last week around the clock. Slowly I realized that I had thought of Casey less than any time after her death. I am getting on without Casey and doing pretty well at times- The so-called reinvestment in life that grief specialists speak of. That became a very painful realization. I am not yet ready to admit or believe or accept that I can get on " so well" without her.

What will it take...? Distracted Driving Program

On May 13th I participated in the every 15 minutes program at Notre Dame High School in Easton, PA. Every15minutes.com Students and their parents were involved in a two day recreation of the horrors and emotions of a traffic tragedy in their community. Students and parents were moved to tears when retelling what it had felt like to be cut out of a car with the jaws of life, flown by helicopter to a trauma center, be pronounced dead, placed in a body bag or to be told that their child had died in surgery. Another student, the drunk driver, told what it felt like to be subject to stares, scorn and hatred when being led through a real courthouse for sentencing in an orange jump suit and handcuffs. Parents received death notifications, wrote obituaries and selected coffins for their deceased children. Traffic safety experts believe that putting faces on highway tragedies may make us all think differently about how we drive. Clearly this program accomplished that for many students and their parents. I was asked to speak at the "memorial service." It was the first memorial service I had attended since Casey's. I was able to tell a Casey story or two that I did not tell at her funeral and was very warmly received. I played our 3 minute public service distracted driving video. It was "good therapy."I so very much love being with young people and speaking with them and learning from them as I did with Casey and continue to do with Brett and Casey's friends.

Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother's day. I gave Di a card-from a husband and the father of our two children with this wonderful woman-two children and one is still living. Mothers and their lost children. I have gotten a glimmer into what it means to be a mother-a mother whose dying child's last words were "I want my mom." A mother who will never forget that she could not be with her daughter in those last moments. A mother who was comforted by knowing that as her child was dying there was another mother present who was comforting her child. A mother who yesterday embraced another mother who had lost her son in another senseless traffic accident. An instant connection-mothers who had lost children.

Di opened the card looked at me and then we both sobbed and cried and held each other-for ourselves, for Casey, for Brett and for all who loved Casey and those that she loved.