Long Stretch

This is one long weekend. It's the 4 day stretch of one funeral after another for the 4 crash victims.
Today is the one funeral I had hoped to attend. I knew 3 of the four kids, but today, this child, my son wrestled with. I would trust her to keep an eye on him on and off the mat.

The rumors run rampant in a town this small. You find you are tied in some way to people you didn't know. Snippets of the "truth" come out more and more.
I've heard more about the accident than I really wanted to. Gruesome details. Bravery, coward, blood, guts and gore. Why charges stand the way they do at the moment. One boy who will live with haunting memories for the rest of his life. Probably with a million what if's playing in his mind. And the driver? As it was said at the first memorial, the state will deal with him.

As for me. I'm glad I don't go to Ruth. As it is every time I drive over Fernbridge I think of the boys killed there while I was in high school. My mind too clearly sees the scene as retold by a boy in the crash. Each time I drive over the spot where two friends lost their life and one hung dangerously close to falling over the edge, I say a little prayer or a little hello to those who passed. Because I don't want to forget.
I don't want to forget the 3 young men who died in another crash on that bridge. The one who spent much much time with me as a child. He was drinking and driving and acting stupid behind the wheel. Not too drunk to pass on a blind bridge.
Let the memory remind you to tighten your seat belt.
Let it remind you that drink isn't so important. Ever.
And kiss your babies. You never know when they may not come home.