True & Complete Healing

Do we ever truly and completely heal from the hurts and disappointments of life?

Background....Today is the 9th anniversary of the death of a good friend, my girlfriend actually. It was my fault..no matter how you twist the story - the fault still finds it's way back to my doorstep. We were on our way home from my senior prom...she was a junior. Due to a mixup, I had lost the money I had allocated for a hotel room and lost contact with my friends from whom I was gonna bum the money (this was before the time when everybody and their mom had a cell phone). Here we are 90 miles from home and stuck. Little money and late at night. So we take off from Hot Springs for my dad's house in Pine Bluff, both of us tired from the day's activities and just glad to be together. The first hour or so of the trip was fine. We talked and laughed and listened to the radio in the truck and just chilled. About 30 miles outside of Pine Bluff she kisses me goodnight and straps in for a nap, understandably so - it is about 2 or 3 in the morning. So I'm driving and as sleepy as heck. I have my window down and the radio up as loud as I can without waking her...all in the name of staying awake. I nod a couple of times but wake up before any major damage is done. 12 miles outside of Pine Bluff (in Sheridan) I fall asleep...not a nod I was really asleep. It couldn't have been more than a few seconds but anyway I fell asleep. When I woke up we were on the shoulder of the other side of the road and rocks and debris was hitting the windshield. I'm convinced that the noise from that is what woke me up. Anyway, after waking up and realizing that I was on the shoulder of the other side of the road I panicked and overcorrected and instead of slowly and nicely getting back on my side of the road we ended up headed for the trees on the otherside of the road. All that I knew to do was hit my brakes (and so I did), well that sent us and the truck flipping and we ended up upside down in a drainage ditch. Long story short, her seatbelt locked and mine didn't. I managed to get out of the truck before it filled with water but she didn't. I went around and tried to pry her out of the truck, but since her seatbelt was stuck and locked there was nothing that I could do (they had to eventually cut the seatbelt because it didn't unlock). All in all it couldn't have been more than 3-5 minutes between the time that I went to sleep and the time that we came to rest in the drainage ditch. But in those few minutes my life changed forever, as did the lives of her family, friends and all who knew her.

Fast forward to today, it is 9 years later and though I've moved on with life and managed to piece my life back together I'm not sure that I've healed. I still dream about her. I dream about the accident. I dream about her parents and siblings who are forced to live life without her. I'm claustrophobic as a result of that night. If I happen to watch something on tv or a movie that depicts drowning I will begin to hyperventilate if I don't watch myself. Of course I've heard it said a million time that God does things for a reason, but that brings little comfort when it's actually you living through something. And I'm wondering if I'll ever truly heal?

The pain today is just as real as it was then. The pictures of the time we shared are just as vivid today as it was then. It bothers me when I can barely remember what her voice sounds like...so I take myself down memory lane to the familiar things that she used to say just so that I can remember her voice, but the remembrance of her voice makes me sob within.

How do you heal? Does healing bring closure? Does closure bring forgetfulness? I can't say that I want to forget her or what happened. I don't know if I want or deserve not to feel pain at the thought of her. She's gone and I'm here. My dad has me still but her mom is without her and will forever be so. Why should I be allowed not to feel that? What gives me the right to ignore that?

"Why" seems to be the question that reigns whenever I allow myself to travel this road. Oh, how I wish I knew why? Maybe that would bring some clarity to an otherwise muddled situation.

Sonya.... though you're gone and will never read this - I love you and I do truly miss you. I wish things would have turned out differently. I would gladly trade places with you.

Mrs. Cook....though you will probably never read this either - I'm eternally sorry for the continued pain and turmoil that I decisions have cost you. I will never be able to fully convey to you how sorry I am. I hope that through the years you have been able to do the one thing that I couldn't do ....forgive me!


.......Mystic_Journeyer