Straight To You

eleven

I don't know where Mom went.

Her location wasn't included in the note. She didn't call. She didn't text, or e-mail, or write. She was silent. She didn't want us to know where she had gone, because she didn't want us to find her. I wish I could have realized that sooner. Maybe then I could have protected myself from a lot of pain.

Every day that she was gone, I would start my days by wondering where she was. I probably drove my dad crazy over the course of the next few days, asking if he'd found out where Mom went. The answer was always the same, no he hadn't found her yet, and I'd be the first he told when he did. He called and went to visit all of Mom's friends, wondering if they knew anything about where she'd run off to. They never did. They were just as clueless as we were. Even Mom's parents didn't know where she could be, a fact that slowly drove my grandparents insane. I can't imagine what it must be like, not knowing where my own kid is. If she's safe or not, if she's okay or not. I guess that's why Mom's parents eventually moved to Florida. They needed to get away; to escape. That was their answer to the problem Mom had created.

After two months of silence from Mom, Dad finally filled out a missing persons report for the police. That's when the search began. I remember feeling ecstatic. This is it, I had thought. The police are going to find her. The police are going to bring Mom back to me.

And I was right.

Partially.

Five months after the search began, Mom was found.

There had been a car accident, I remember Dad telling me. A very bad car accident. I know the story like the back of my hand, but that doesn't make it any easier to hear or think about.

Mom was driving a rental car up on the Blue Ridge Mountains in Tennessee. It was a rainy day, so the roads were wet. The rain pouring onto the wind shield made it hard to see, and Mom was never a very confident driver. I don't know the exact details, but another car approached in the wrong lane, going a little too fast to be safe. The cars hit, smashing the front of Mom's car and flipping it over onto it's side. When the other car skidded, it slammed into the side of Mom's car. Mom's car fell down the mountain. That's why it took so long to find her, the police told us. The car was so smashed it was hardly identifiable.

I don't know how long I cried after hearing that news. I think I cried on and off for at least a month. It was the worst feeling in the world, knowing Mom would never come home. I would never hug her again. She would never comfort me when I was sad, or laugh with me when I felt silly. My mom would never go shopping with me for prom, or meet my first boyfriend, or go to my wedding, or meet my children.

Gone. My mom was gone. Forever. And I just didn't know how to cope.

I remember sitting at our kitchen table one morning with Dad a few days after we'd heard what happened to Mom. He was grieving too, but I always felt like my pain was worse than his. Somehow, Dad always managed to hold himself together in a way that just didn't seem possible to me.