What We Don't Recover From
By Laura Burkhart
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When her teenage son died my friend ran
up thousands of dollars on her credit cards not shopping for clothes or household effects or even Caribbean cruises to fill the hole in her heart. It was calls to hot line psychics. What did she need to know? Who could possibly reassure her when she knew something was terribly broken and would never be made whole? Her husband paid the credit card bills, including amazing exorbitant interest, and she promised promised, cross her heart and hope to-- why wasn’t she the one taken? But her compulsion, this grief, made her reach for the phone again and again…maybe this psychic, this time, would provide the balm she needed for that raw pain the ache that never went away. Here is something I never told my friend: when her son was in the last stages beyond the time he could safely drive, he ran my son off the road. He never even saw the Harley in the right lane when he turned. My son, same age, better reflexes, made it to the sidewalk before he toppled over and cursed at the stranger who turned the corner, two red lights receding in the darkening, then darkened, night. |
