Crockett -- a year later

On the anniversary of Crockett's death (09/03), I was visiting my son and his family. The entire month of August, I have mourned his death. I have not made the pilgrimage to his burial site in about six months. He lives in my heart and only his bones and skin are there. I will go visit and put new flowers on his grave this month.

The defining moments in my life (so far): The birth of my children, their marriages and the birth of my grandchildren. The deaths of my grandparents. Easter Triiduum 1992 when I was confirmed into the Catholic Church. Being diagnosed with Fibromyalgia Syndrome. The day John Kennedy was killed. The terrorists planes ramming the Twin Towers on 09/11/2001. And the death of Crockett Nicholas on 09/03/2005.

I've had other 'moments' but I've chosen these at this time to define me.
1- I'm a mother and a grandmother.
2- I lost my grandparents, moving me up one rung on the forebear ladder from 'grandchild' to 'parent.'
3- Becoming a Catholic is indescribable: it was the culmination of my spiritual search for "place."
4- Having FMS has been a challenge. I was able to hold the disability at bay with vitamin supplements, but it finally wore me down and I am on prescriptions which allow me to function more or less 'normally' (depending on your definition of 'normal' of course).
5- The day JFK was shot, I was a freshman at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama. On my way back to my dorm (the old "Auburn Hall" which is now apartments), someone walked past me and told me JFK had been shot. Now, I was a Goldwater Girl, but I knew enough to say "don't joke about such things" not knowing that it wasn't just 'idle talk' but reality. I remember standing in the doorway to the dorm room of the only girl in Auburn Hall with a television set (black and white) and watching the replay of the event. It was not something I assimilated easily. We don't (the USA doesn't) kill its Presidents, we just vote them out of office (at least every 8 years if not every 4). But JFK was shot and killed. And for what? Did the USA go into a hidey-hole? No, we are (the USA is) too diverse to do that. We get up and continue to live our lives.
6- On September 11, 2001, I had a dental appointment in a town south of where I live and was on the highway driving there when the terrorists used our own airplanes to strike a blow at the USA. I arrived and was ushered into the area where the staff and dentist were watching the replays. I was the only patient they'd not been able to contact to change my dentist appointment. We talked and then I got my teeth cleaned and we watched more news. My comment was "This is the USA, this doesn't happen in the USA!" Well, of course, it did. We know the hows and whys now, five years later. The 9/11 Commission Report is being made into a docudrama by ABC News and Disney (edited due to threats by the Democrat Party who do not like to see the truth show up on everyone's television screens) this Sept 10 and 11. The 5 hour docudrama is reportedly taken directly from the 9/11 Commission Report.
7- Crockett was run over at 12:15 AM on 09/03/05. His death was devastating to me. The only parallel is the death of both grandmothers. My one grandmother decided she was going to die and two weeks later she did. She was my anchor to my genealogy. The other grandmother's death cost me my "grandchild" status. I was a traumatized zombie for two weeks after that. But with Crockie, I've never quite gotten over his untimely death. Partly out of guilt for not leashing him, partly out of anger that the truck (pulling a double wheeled open trailer) could have slowed, honked, and missed him. Instead the driver hit him, got him caught in the double wheels of the trailer, zig-zagged along the road to release his trapped body, and turned off his running lights so that no one could read his tag number. He sped up once the body was left lying in the middle of the roadway. It was dark, I didn't even think that the "thud" I heard was Crockett's death, and it took me 10 to 15 minutes to locate his body. Crockett "always" went to the back yard. He had been beside me and then when I took something from the car into the house, I noticed he was gone. I never for once thought that he'd crossed the highway (he'd never done that before). Now, I'm fairly sure that he had seen deer eating fruit in the yard and they'd run across the street instead of back into the woods behind my house as they usually did. He followed and was prancing back home when he was hit.

Maybe because Crockett's death is the most recent "defining event" of my life, it's still the one which affects me the most. There was an indefinable specialness about Crockett. I miss him terribly. Crockett and Casey tolerated each other, but I know she missed him after he died.

(The date on the photo is not correct.)