One Thing After Another

The end of my freshman year at UCI was a whirlwind. I had just transferred to a new, more demanding, full time role at work. I had been hospitalized twice in the span of a week. My best friend and I had a falling out of epic proportions leaving me virtually friendless and alone for the impending summer. None of it seemed to compare to my first real experience of death.

After move-out day in the dorms, I had to spend a week in an Airbnb before I could move into my next apartment. Come Friday, my brother and mom drove my dad’s truck, full of all the things I couldn’t pack in my small car the week before, to Orange County and stayed the night in a nearby budget hotel. I had contemplated spending the night with them instead of in the room I had rented, but their cot did not compare to my queen bed. I left with an alarm set for 7 am and we slept. Actually, I overslept half an hour after a late-night binge-watching Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and rushed to pack all of my lingering belongings. To my surprise I hadn’t gotten any frantic messages or voicemails from my mom, so I sent a text saying I slept in and that I would head out immediately. She responded saying they would head out soon too and see me at the front office of the apartment complex.

So, I put the rest of my things in my already packed car, grabbed my bag of trash, and sent a message to the host that I had officially checked out of the Airbnb. I was sitting behind the wheel in a stranger’s driveway, car turned on and in gear, when I saw that my brother was calling. I kept the car in gear with my foot on the break, assuming it would be a quick question, and answered the phone. On the other end, I could hear by brother’s stuffy voice telling me that our aunt had died in her sleep. I put the car in park while he said my mom didn’t want to tell me until I was with them, but he thought I deserved to know.

So, I knew. And I couldn’t breathe. And I couldn’t see. She was too young to die in her sleep, my Aunt Irene. Only 62. No glaring health issues or pre-existing conditions like most of my mom’s family, just a recently picked up smoking habit that she was trying to quit, and that wasn’t even the cause of her death. We didn’t even know what it was for a long while after she died.

But I still had to drive on three different freeways to get to my new apartment. Cooper, my brother, hung up on me after I started hyperventilating so I called my mom to try and see if he was mistaken. He had to be mistaken. Only three days before she was commenting on my heavily filtered Instagram post that she loved my new haircut. There were four emoji hearts. People who are about to die don’t comment on such frivolous things like a photo of a haircut. But she answered and cried and said to meet them there, that they were going to leave now.

I took off with the directions sounding from my phone and in search of a trash can. After driving past two strip malls and seemingly missing any sign of a trash can through my teary eyes, I found one and pulled over to throw out my trash and to attempt to collect myself. Back in drive and out of the lot, I drove toward the stoplight two blocks away from the freeway entrance. I had to pick up my phone from the passenger floor after it fell out of the little pocket under my radio when I came to a sudden stop at the light. What I didn’t know was that when it fell, it knocked my car out of gear and into neutral.

The light turned green and when the car wouldn’t go, I panicked and cried harder and accidentally put the car in reverse, slamming on the gas instead of the break in my panic. When I finally got it right, I went slowly through the light and pulled into the next strip mall, the car I hit following closely behind. I parked my car, still in tears, while a very angry man came pounding on my window, him and his wife screaming at me how stupid I am. A reckless teen driver. What the fuck was I doing. Probably texting. Stupid girl. I’m calling the police.

I shakily hand over my insurance and registration and license. He is takes pictures and continues to scream, as does his wife. I reluctantly call my mom and tell her I got in a crash between my gasps for air, but everything was okay, and it was just a tap. And it was.

The police showed up shortly after. The man demanded they do something about me. I explained to the officer that it was an accident and my aunt had died and my mom was coming and I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it. I told him I gave the man my information and took pictures of both of our cars with shaky hands and that my aunt had died. She was dead and I was sitting on the concrete circle that held up a light post. The cop was on my side, surprisingly. He berated the man I hit for not providing me with his information in return and calling the police when no damage had been done to either of our cars and no one had gotten hurt. They left after checking in on me again and I reassured them my family was on the way.

After another accusation of being stupid and reckless, both the man I hit and his wife reluctantly left and my brother and mom arrived shortly after. We cried for maybe an hour and left after we had enough time to get the worst of it out. Cooper drove my car while I rode with my mom. I picked up my keys and signed my papers.

I got my shit together for the sake of my mom. Her best friend in the whole world had just died. My mom was the last of twelve and her older sister, Irene, basically raised her. She was the only one of my mom’s siblings that wasn’t a crazy asshole republican and the one person my mother talked to almost daily aside from us.

She was a wreck. We were all barely holding it together but somehow managed to put everything inside. There was much to shop for and every store we went to reminded us of her. At Bed, Bath & Beyond we saw the Viva paper towels she vehemently swore by and that my brother had mistakenly called Vido’s in his childhood. She worked at Target for most of her life and when we went there to get more necessities there was a huge display of sunflower bouquets. She loved sunflowers more than most things and dreamed of one day opening a bakery called Sunflower Sweets. I even designed the logo when I was 15.

…

My dad flew down the next day so my mom could fly home, pack, and head to New Jersey, and he could drive the truck home. My brother could take the train back to San Diego, I could settle in, and we could all have time to pack and find flights to join my mom. He would have come the day of, my dad, but he was busy arranging an emergency funeral after his lifelong best friend lost his mother and brother-in-law within days of each other. All I remember of him coming to us was his commendation of my strength in light of tragedy. I thought it was comical considering the state of hysteria I was in the day before, but I guess I got my shit together pretty quickly and he only saw the me that was holding it together for the sake of my mom. I held it together through the trip to Jersey and the funeral. I held it together every time she cried on the phone and in person when she stayed with me for a weekend to get her mind off it all.

But now we cry together because after that I had plenty of other family deaths to cry over and accept. It just sucked that she had to be the first. We still think of her with every sunflower and cupcake and now I only buy Viva paper towels. Every day my mom looks at the mural my dad had painted in the backyard in her honor. We see her in everything, and she will always be the first person I loved who died.