Angelwings - 10 years later

It's hard to believe that it's been a decade since 'that day'. In one devastating moment, our lives changed. Ten Years ago, a beautiful little girl, named Kennedy Lyons, reached out to her angels, and they swept her into the heavens. She was my son Dexter's best friend. Her passing affected our view of life, and we learned a true appreciation for the small things. My son, in his own struggles, taught me lessons about life and death, and acceptance that there are not always answers to the hard questions. Together, we've grown. And never forgotten Kennedy in our daily lives, nor the impact she's had on our every thought. 

RIP, sweetness. You are missed.

In tribute, I rededicate this essay to her memory. 

Warning: bring tissues.

 

  Angelwings

“Oh, my God, NO!!!” 

I stopped dead in my tracks, not wanting to venture any nearer, fearing what I would find. Initially, my mind would not, could not, comprehend the truth of what I was seeing. Then the wave of nausea hit me. I stood like the other neighbors, in horror, hands to my face as I repeated my words, “No, no, no!” My four-year-old son Dexter was at my side, a look of confusion on his face. I scooped him up and held him close, not knowing what to say or do. Only moments before, our lives had some sense of security, and now it was gone.

It was a beautiful, sunny May afternoon, in Eugene, Oregon. The neighborhood kids were riding scooters and bicycles up and down the sidewalks when a gentle knock on the door interrupted me from my chores. I opened the door to be greeted by smiling six-year-old Kennedy, balancing her pink and white bicycle with one hand, clutching a stuffed puppy, her constant companion, in the other. Her wispy blond hair stuck out from beneath her bike helmet, which sat cockeyed on her head.

“Can Dexter ride bikes?” she asked. 

Dexter, being a rambunctious and adventurous child, would occasionally escape from my surveillance, and I feared for his safety. I didn’t feel like supervising today, there were too many chores to finish. “Not today,” I said.

            “Ok,” she said with a smile. I watched her straddle her bike and precariously start pedaling down the sidewalk toward her house. I climbed back up the stairs to put the clean sheets on the beds.

 

              As I straightened the quilt, I heard emergency sirens, which often interrupted our day. Such was the inconvenience of living near a fire station. There was an eerie shrillness this time that urged me to look out my upstairs bedroom window onto the narrow street below. Lights flashed near the end of the street. Probably just another domestic dispute, I thought. Living in crowded low-income housing tended to thrust that sort of violence into life. As I opened the window to get a better view, I heard a thunderous knock on my front door. It was insistent, even desperate. 

I dashed down the stairs and opened the door. There on my porch stood a small girl of about six, her eyes large on the canvas of her ashen face. Tears streamed down her dirty cheeks, leaving white streaks as she sobbed, begging me to come quickly and help. I ran after her in my bare feet, my stomach churning.  The normally bustling street seemed to be held hostage by eerie silence. A sense of shock was spreading across the neighborhood much like the dandelions had spread from yard to yard. I was aware of people standing in their driveways, horror painted on their faces. There in the middle of the street was a large, brown UPS truck. Under the front axle was the familiar shape of a pink and white bicycle. 

            Kennedy died instantly on a beautiful, sunny afternoon. Her funeral was filled with wide-eyed children trying to understand what had happened. How could we as parents explain this horrible event to our children when we did not comprehend how such things could happen ourselves? How do we reconcile the unbearable grief?

            

Several days after the funeral, I watched Dexter seemingly talking to himself. As I listened closer, I realized he was talking to Kennedy, and he was actually pausing, as if listening to a response. Daring not to intrude, I stood silently in awe, as he talked about the drawings he and Kennedy had made the day before she died and were later put inside her casket. He promised to find purple balloons for her, like the ones that had been at her funeral. He turned to where he could see me listening, and without flinching said, “Mom, Kennedy wants me to give her purple balloons, okay?”

“Sure,” I answered.

            “Can we go buy them now?” he asked. 

Again, I said, “Sure.”

            We bought two large purple helium balloons. As we walked from the store to the car, Dexter stopped and asked me, “Can I give them to Kennedy now?” I handed him the balloons and he looked up into the sunny blue sky, releasing the strings from his chubby fist. We stood there in the store parking lot watching them float upward toward the heavens until they disappeared. I looked with weepy eyes down into my young sons face as it beamed with the biggest smile I’d ever seen. Noticing my tears, he grasped my hand and pulled me down to his level, embracing me in a hug.

He whispered into my ear, “It’s okay, Mom. She caught them in her wings.”

In honor of Kennedy,

tell someone special

"I love you"

 today.