December 31, 2005

It was an ordinary day. When I think about that day, that’s the first thing I think – “It was an ordinary day.” The girls were going to spend New Years Eve afternoon with their dad and his family celebrating their Christmas. Before they left, I told them I was going to Walmart – did they need anything? Anna said yes, she needed black tights to wear to work that night hostessing at Rockola. No problem. Jessica and Anna took Elisha and left to go to their dad’s – I ran errands, getting Anna’s tights. I had no inclination at all – none in any far corner of my mind – that I would wear those tights to Anna’s memorial service three days later.

For December 31st, it was a sunny day – not terribly cold. I remember laying on the sofa to watch TV – a quiet afternoon with no special plans for the night.

While I was lounging on the sofa at my house, the girls opened presents at their dad’s – their grandparents stayed for a short visit. Later, Jessica, Anna, Elisha and Mike (my ex-husband) went outside so Elisha could play on the tractor. It’s always fun to crank up a big farm machine and feel the noise and vibration. At two-years-old, Elisha, discovering new things at every turn, was our source of vicarious innocence and delight. With the tractor running, Anna left the group to in to the bathroom. And hidden beneath the sound of the tractor were the two gunshots she fired. The first was apparently a test. For the second, Anna aimed at her temple and shot herself. No one heard the shots.

After a few minutes, Jessica thought she’d go inside and check on Anna. I can imagine her wondering if Anna had run out of toilet paper – needed a tampon – normal stuff. And she discovered her sister’s body.

My phone rang and I heard a hysterical Jessica screaming at me. Something had happened. Without being able to understand her words, I knew she was telling me that Elisha had fallen – as 2-year-olds often do. I tried to reassure her that he would be okay – I would meet her at the emergency room. How bad was he hurt? Did he bump his head? Was he bleeding? He would be fine – I remember the last moments I had on this planet feeling secure in thinking everything would be okay – I just wanted to calm down my child.

Then I heard her scream at me, “No Momma! Anna’s Dead!” I was standing on my carport looking at the clear blue sky through the empty branches of my oak trees. I heard the words, but they didn’t make sense. I couldn’t understand her. What? Again. “Momma! Anna’s dead!” she screamed at me. At that precise moment, the world stopped turning. I died at that moment too.

And my “NO!” swallowed me whole. I ran inside, got my shoes, pocketbook and keys and ran back out to my car. Totally out of my mind, I got the car pointed in the right direction and drove on auto-pilot. Screaming “NO!” over and over and over, crying. Somehow I found out she had shot herself – either from Mike’s wife who told me to just stay home. “HA! As if I’d do that – I had to get to my baby and FIX this situation – You people have made some kind of serious mistake and fuck you if you think I’m just sitting here! Who the fuck do you think I am? Who the fuck do you think YOU are?” I remember screaming. Mostly NO. And it’s the NO like they do in movies when mothers get news like this. It is accurately portrayed. The life goes out of your body – your spirit evaporates, you become a deflated, empty vessel that’s only able to feel pain … But I had a tiny shread of hope. Before I actually arrived there (a 20-30 minute drive in good circumstances), I had hope – maybe there’d been a mistake – maybe they just thought she was hurt – maybe she was okay now – maybe by the time I got there, everyone would be standing around hugging and laughing over that terrible scare. Maybe.

I flashed my lights at a state trooper I met on the road. It turned out to be a woman trooper who was sympathetic to whatever story I was able to communicate to her, but she said she couldn’t transport me in her car, and she couldn’t give me an escort. Fine, I said – But I’m not stopping for anything until I get there. And I was trying to get people on my cell phone – the man I was dating. Silly me, I thought it would be good to have him with me – but he was too drunk to find where Anna was, couldn’t get there… Men, fucking useless. I drove - I remember I was driving into the sunset. I think it was around 3 or 4 o’clock in the afternoon – you’d think I’d know that, as time-oriented as I am, but I don’t. Like so many things about that day, it really doesn’t matter.

I stopped my car in my ex-husband’s front yard – there were sheriff’s cars in the driveway. That’s when I knew. When I knew there wasn’t a mistake. I flung myself into the house, beyond hysterical, beyond reason, nothing but fear – I screamed at the police, I screamed at my ex and his wife – I screamed “I want to see my baby! I have to see my Anna!” They tried to calm me down. They tried to be soothing. They held me back – four of them grabbed me and told me No, they wouldn’t let me see her – that I didn’t want to see her like that. “FINE then,” I screamed, “cover her up, but I’ve got to hold her! NOW GODDAMMIT! She came out of me, she is my baby – you let go of me!” I don’t know how long we struggled. I was kicking and screaming and I punched one of the deputies in the face and I kicked my ex in the balls (and a small little voice in my head rejoiced over that) – and I still fought them - I had to see my Anna. Somehow, Jessica appeared and got right up in my face. She calmly told me, No. I wasn’t going to get to see Anna – I didn’t want to see her like that. “Calm down, Momma – go outside,” she said to me.

Please just let me hold her, then. Please please please… The fight was gone from me, the wicked witch of the west was melting – please please please, let me hold my Anna please please please

No. And they didn’t let me hold her or see her. The motherfucking bastards. I didn’t have to see her – but why couldn’t I hold her? Were they afraid it would upset me? Hello? I will never forgive that deputy for keeping me from Anna – because I think it was her final say-so. I will never forgive her. Ever. She was cruel and heartless and inhuman. How dare she deny me my child. It was not her right.

I went outside. And that’s when the world started turning again. Ramona and Cindy and Becky and Ashley came. Ashley went to be with Jessica and Elisha. Ramona started making phone calls. I sat on the brick steps and smoked cigarette after soggy cigarette – my tears pouring out – my eyes feeling swollen. I was in and out of awareness for a while. I remember trying to think of who Ramona should call – my parents who had just driven back down to Florida would have to turn around and come back – Anna’s BFF Katie in Arizona – my sister. I still had a sister – Jessica didn’t, my brain told me. I felt like I was exploding. I knew I was out of control. But it couldn’t be fixed.

I shouted at the funeral home people that it was Mike’s fault because he just had to have a fucking handgun in HIS house. I was still screaming and shouting – trying to drown out the words inside my head that my Anna was gone. I heard Ramona using the word “dead” – and it was like a physical slap across my face – NO! Don’t say it! Don’t say it and it won’t be real! Three years later and I still can’t say the word. Anna is gone. We lost Anna.

They moved the hearse to the house’s front door – I think to avoid a scene with me. I knew what the bastards were up to. I went to the front and told the deputy standing there that if he thought he was going to keep me away from my daughter, he should go ahead and handcuff me now. He just stepped back. I heard the gurney or whatever it’s called coming to the door. Some part of me knew that my daughter, my beautiful seventeen-year-old daughter’s perfect body was zipped up inside a plastic bag rolling out the door, heading for the back of the hearse. Somewhere in me, I knew I would never ever ever be with my Anna again. I reached out to the middle of her body in the bag. Was that my Anna? They kept moving, placing her body in the hearse. I didn’t want to let go. But I did. The fight in me was languishing. The rage would be back in full force. The emptiness. The pain that dropped me to my knees.

Cindy, Ramona and Becky drove me home. Ashley stayed to take care of Jessica. Over the next few days, we all existed in a haze of pain and awareness and duty and responsibility and anguish and loss and anger and sadness and emptiness. I have snippets of memories from those days. Ramona was at my house being in charge. Ashley asking me if I wanted something to eat. My parents arriving, after their drive from Florida – my Mom’s refusal to accept suicide, instead choosing accident – whatever lets you sleep at night. My second husband showing up with pharmaceuticals that did let me sleep a black empty dreamless sleep. Sherry and Beth – me thinking how Anna always felt close to Sherry, being the “younger daughter” – how Anna leaned on Sherry when Daniel died. People from work coming to the house. Katie and Virginia and Tommy. The ride to the funeral home when my mom told me and Ramona to “behave” – as if we were going to somehow act up? I felt so at ease with Lesa – because unlike anyone else, she DID know how I felt. I was learning how to “pull myself together” in a very literal way – after dissolving into tears or anger or sadness, I raise my head, straighten my back and shoulders, take that last sniff, and pretend I’m okay. Fake it til you make it, right?

I do remember the kindness my ex-husband showed when he let me call all the shots for Anna’s service and cremation. And he stood up for me at the funeral home when I insisted that they let me touch her body. I remember being surprised that he would do that for me. So at the funeral home, they brought her body (still in its bag) to one of the rooms there. The man unzipped the bag partway and took her right hand out of the bag and laid it beside her. For me. For me to hold – to touch, to see that yes, it was my Anna’s hand. Her beautiful, graceful, long-fingered hand. So cold. I did not have the strength to stand, I remember dropping to my knees, holding her precious hand – and talking to her. Telling her how sorry I was for all my mistakes, how much I have loved her from the moment I knew I was pregnant with her – she had my love. And after a while, I was able to let go of her hand. … I didn’t cause a scene; I behaved.

I wore her tights to her memorial service where we celebrated what a beautiful, special wonderful light had gone out of our lives. That is a hazy memory at best. I remember Katie. Noura. The boy who sat next to Anna in science class who said Anna made him feel special.

And I’ve put the minutes into hours into days into weeks and months and now three years. The new Jennifer who was born the day we lost Anna is different. I am much tougher. I don’t trust anyone or anything – because if my child can be taken from me, anything can. I have lost any relationship at all with what was known as god. I have been betrayed and stolen from and lied to - no big deal. I realize I have no one to depend on but myself. I am alive today because Jessica cannot lose her mother to suicide. I went through a period of thinking that maybe Anna’s spirit had led me to “the right man” to be my partner for the rest of my life – what a load of horseshit that turned out to be.

I’ve been asked over and over, “Why?” We don’t know. There was no note. She wasn’t pregnant or on drugs or failing out of school. So I shrug and say that it doesn’t matter. Really it doesn’t. What reason could be good enough? What reason could be right? What reason could make me say, “Oh well then, okay.” She’s gone and reasons won’t help anything. Nothing will make it better. My Anna is gone.