heckyeatumblr#3

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3. Write about a terrible day.


Mum and Dad had got a phone call and left in a hurry with no explanation. Later on they called us to tell us that they were on their way to my Aunty Jane's and that my Uncle David had been in an accident, but that they were waiting on news.


As it turns out, David had been killed a couple of hours before in a car accident. He hated driving, and rarely did, but he'd had a work meeting in London and had been in a traffic jam on the way home when a  lorry driver, asleep behind the wheel, drove into the back of his car. There were 5 other cars and there was 1 other fatality.


Because there was no warning, and there was no time for goodbye, or for messages...David's death will always have significant resonance with me. When we were growing up, he was always there: birthdays, Christmas, even some holidays. He was the fun one. He would throw us up into the air, take us to the zoo, wrestle us to the ground...and it was always even more hilarious because Jane was such the opposite: she, like me, was and is a severe worrier. Having David around just gave her someone to bounce off of, to laugh with, to take things less seriously with (at least that's how I perceived it anyway). That David was such a part of my childhood, and that his part in my life did lessen as I grew up, and then he left so quickly: it feels almost rude. I doesn't feel real. I feel like I didn't matter to him, or that maybe none of us did. It's all so painfully unfair; that he couldn't say goodbye, or how he would remember us. Because I only truely knew him as a child, I want so desperately to have known him as an adult too. I know it's selfish to bring this back to me: but I wanted him to see me grow up. I wanted to make him proud.


I remember talking to him about GCSE options and all he had to say was 'pick the one with the most field trips: even if it means taking German (I hated German); if you can go to Germany, do it.' Him and Jane travelled all over the world. 


I just remember the shock. I remember the disbelief.


The shock has gone, but the disbelief will remain I think. I just wish that I had known him better. Better yet, that I still knew him.