Devin's Way, May 8: Another dream, and another person saved


May 8, 2012
            Nine months and a day.
            That’s how long it’s been since Devin was killed.
            It didn’t hit me until last night about 9 p.m., as I was ironing my clothes. I said something to Ruth about it.
            “I know,” she said quietly.
            And for the nine-month anniversary of his death, Devin came to me in a dream last night. Don’t know if I can call these kinds of dreams a vision like the one on 80th Street. That night, and the feeling of Devin being with us on Thanksgiving remain the strongest form of a connection I’ve had with him since his death. They were beyond mere dreams or coincidences.
            In last night’s dream, I found myself in Devin’s room, the way it looked when we were stationed in Germany, but the bed was pulled to the middle of the room so I could stand on one side and Ruth on the other. She came into the room in her nursing scrubs ready to go to work and wanted to say goodbye. I was on the other side. Devin, as a grown adult – or close to it – was lying in bed resting.
            We both reached down to touch him. To hug him.
            “Oh sweetie, we miss you so much,” Ruth told him. “We love you and miss you.”
            My head brushed his. I could feel the wiry hair that could only belong to Devin. I could smell his brown, wiry hair as it brushed my nose and forehead. I could smell his breath.
            “Devin,” I said. “We love you so much. We miss you.”
            He returned the hug and smiled at us both.
            “I miss you guys. I love you, too.”
            Ruth and I looked at each other with a bit of a smile, both knowing it was a dream and when we’d look again, Devin would be gone.
            But he didn’t leave.
            “He’s still here!” I said.
            We knew, intrinsically, this was a blessing, and hugged him once more. And once more he returned the hug. We smiled at each other. We had him back, for just a few moments.
            And then the moment was gone. It was no longer Devin lying in bed.
            I woke up and it was 4:14 a.m.
            What a dream.
            I live for moments like that.
***
            

            Pulled into the parking lot at work today, and as I pulled into my spot,  saw the driver behind me,  talking on her cell phone.
            I had one more bracelet in my car.
            Months earlier I had stopped someone in the same lot for talking on her cell phone and driving. She took great offense, and even reported it to Great Powers here, who asked me if I did that, and I admitted I had. Nothing came of it.
            But I made Devin a promise. I made myself a promise. I followed through on that promise today.
            I waited for her to get out of her car. Her eyes met mine and she smiled.
            “Excuse me,” I said. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to scare you … ”
            “One second, Mom,” she said.
            It got her attention as she put down the phone and listened.
            “My son was killed by a driver on a cell phone,” I continued with a kind smile. “Again, I’m not trying to scare you, but it just makes me cringe when I see someone do that. If you could please try to break that habit, I would really appreciate it.”
            She smiled back.
            “I am so sorry,” she said.
            “It’s OK, I’m just trying to let people know.”
            “I am sorry, I will try to break the habit for you.”
            “Thank you,” I said. “That means a lot.”
            Mission accomplished.
            I looked up to the sky.
            “That’s one more person, Devin.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Where tooth drillin' and deer killin' go hand in hand

Image
"So, ya' wanna go deer huntin' after I fill that cavity?" "So, ya' like to deer hunt? Would you like to go deer hunting sometime?" I've had plenty of dentists tell me to spit (get your minds out of the gutter!), and plenty of dentists yell for not flossing enough, but never been asked to go kill a deer ... until I moved to Wisconsin. Eleven years later, I still remember that's the way Dr. Pete Janovic introduced himself to me. It was even funnier back then because I thought everybody in Wisconsin -- and especially Doctor Pete -- had an accent somewhere between the Swedish Chef and a bad Sarah Palin impersonation. I didn't know who Sarah Palin was 11 years ago, mind you, but once I heard her say, "You betcha," I said to myself, "Oh! So that's how Petey and everybody else sounds!" I'm also aware after more than a decade in Wisconsin, I sometimes sound like that myself, ya know! You betcha. Pete became our
Read more

Is Heaven for real?

Image
Writing from the Atlanta airport, waiting for my connecting flight back to Milwaukee ... Is Heaven for real? I capitalized it, so I must believe it is. But it's a good question. This isn't what I was going to write. After hearing someone too-young-to-be-drinking say on the airplane she was, "hungover as fuck," I thought it would be good for some meandering observations of life in an airport. But then perusing the rack of alluring paperbacks at one of the gift shops, I spied the novel, "90 Minutes in Heaven" (Now a major motion picture!). I'm never sure if the proclamation of a book turning into a movie spurs more book sales or less. On one hand, you may say, "It's so good, they made it a movie! I must buy it and read it first!" Or you could say, "Reading words is so tiresome. I'd rather go to a place and pay way too much for popcorn and a soda and have someone spoon feed me the information with dramatic music."
Read more

The image is horrifying so we should never forget

Image
This is the picture. It's the one I see in my mind when I really don’t want to, the one that will always be there and never go away. It’s the car the driver drove, while talking on her cell phone, that hit my son, who was pedaling his bicycle home from work, that amputated his leg and killed him. His name is Devin. I’m not really sure how long he lived after he was hit, as the driver kept driving with him on the car for 800 feet and didn’t stop for three-quarters of a mile, and didn’t call 911 until … when?  According to her police statement, she was on the phone. Her phone records show there were three calls to or from her boyfriend at 12:34 a.m., 12:35 a.m. and 12:45 a.m. She told police the crash happened shortly after the first phone call. She said she heard someone say, “Hello,” then she closed her eyes for a long blink and heard a bang. If the crash happened shortly after the first phone call, that means it happened after 12:34 a.m. but before 12:35 a.
Read more