Death in a Small Town
Many times I tell myself that death is a natural part of life. I had to repeat this to myself after my son’s accidental strangling just to survive. My husband revived my son, but I saw his violently blue body. I had a nightmare this morning of his strangulation as I often do. I also saw a line of people who died in my dream. They appeared in a mirror. It feels ominous now since I heard of four deaths from my hometown, Blanding, Utah, this afternoon.
Three men died in a crash near Natural Bridges National Monument. I knew one of them when he was a little kid. I remember him laughing with his sister and playing an instrument. I probably knew the other two in some way. Blanding isn’t that big, so most people know everybody.
A friend A.N. finally passed away from a years-long battle with cancer. I had only seen her on Facebook for several years. I probably haven’t seen her in person for 15 years. I held out hope that A.N. would miraculously recover, but I knew it probably wouldn’t happen. Again a secretly selfish desire. Her family had been preparing for her death for about a year.
Sometimes we expect death and it feels like a release. When my paternal grandmother died, it felt natural. She was ready to go. My paternal grandfather had died 25 years before. My grandma was ready to be reunited with him. But my grandpa died unexpectedly at 55 of a heart attack. My mom never even knew him.
Death didn’t feel so natural when I was a teenager. Going into my sophomore year, a classmate died in a car crash. He had been speeding when another car hit him. His funeral was closed-casket. A year later, his mom was my history teacher.
My junior year of high school Pandora’s box opened.
I really wanted the part of Anne Shirley in a musical in December. I was disappointed I didn’t get it, but then, I can’t sing very strong. If I had known how insignificant it was.
Early January, I went to my friend D.E.’s house to type a paper because my parents’ computer was malfunctioning. The paper was about my mother’s miraculous healing after a near-fatal crash. D.E.’s mom talked with me. My friend and her mom were talking.
I see her mom’s face from those moments.
The next day, her parents died in a car crash. D.E. and another friend M.A. witnessed the crash. It was graphic. The legal battles with the other person’s insurance took six years to settle. To me, insurance companies are very vicious to drag out such torture.
The next time I had history, my teacher J.B. hugged me and said how important it would be to be there for my friend. J.B. said her friends had helped her after her son’s death 18 months before.
I sung with my group of friends at the parents’ funeral. I think that is the first time I saw D.E. after her parents’ deaths. I had seen M.A. back at school.
I didn’t know how to talk to D.E. for months. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings or let my own overshadow hers. I didn’t know how to react, besides being an undiagnosed bipolar teen. As a group of friends, we visited D.E. at her grandma’s home. The first time we had fun as a group of friends with D.E., we played a game of cards at S.T.’s house. D.E. laughed at memories of her father putting a mop wig on. I felt an emotional dam break. Laughter could come again.
In some ways it helped that many of us were in a Anne of Green Gables play. We had something to focus on outside of school. A.N., who passed from cancer, choreographed musical scenes and co-directed others. She was home from college for a year when she became a dear friend to all my friends. One friend J.E. played the piano. S.T. had the main part. D.E., M.A., and I had minor roles as Anne Shirley’s classmates. Our guy friends’ played major or minor parts or handled the technical aspects.
During one night of dress rehearsal, M.A. sat with D.E.’s and S.T.’s heads in her lap. That image burned in my memory — my friends comforting each other dressed in 19th century kids’ clothes. I want to draw that scene, recreate it in a photo, or write a poem about it. I just don’t know how to capture it.
As part of my processing D.E.’s parents’ death, I wrote a dramatic reading of a teenager losing her parents’ on prom night. Dramatic, I know. My drama teacher suggested I read it to D.E. and M.A. I didn’t really want to, but my drama teacher probably knew it would help me, maybe them, process grief. We talked and cried after I read it. I wonder if it was a selfish desire to write that piece, but it was my way of grieving as I read it at regional and state competitions.
During my senior year, three more classmates lost a parent prematurely. One classmate was a friend in from drama.
I just didn’t get how God could be so mean and kind. How could he heal my mother from certain death before I was born, but let so many other parents die? At moments, God felt achingly close, while at others he felt dead.
Over time, I still struggled with death. My maternal grandpa died my third year of college. His funeral was one week before finals. I was mentally done with school. I wanted to fly to his funeral, but I couldn’t. Stupid school and lack of funds. I felt so disconnected from his death. I wanted the physical reminder of his life and death only available at a viewing. It just kills me now when we are limiting funerals and terminal hospital visits under COVID-19 restrictions. We are mentally harming so many.
A few years after I left Blanding, three Blanding men died in a plane crash. I knew their parents, wives, and children. Particularly, my sister’s friend who became a young widow. My friend S.T. lost her brother in a car crash. I remember the prompting to contact her. I remember her brother laughing, having to get surgery because he swallowed a metal toothpick (really?), and so many other fond memories.
Several others from my hometown have died suddenly that have been close to my family or I know of them. I haven’t felt it so much because I haven’t lived in Blanding for 18 years. I haven’t even visited in 11 years. But these four deaths within 12 hours of each other, have rocked me. It’s my friend’s nephew. It’s a friend. This is burying the tiny town where everybody knows everybody (whether friends or frenemies).
It feels like such an echo chamber living or being from a small town. You know each person’s death, or who lost a loved one. It reverberates throughout the mental town’s walls. It feels so overwhelming.
Yet it can feel so comforting. No one has to say a word. We just know who is hurting. We can help without being asked. Sometimes we already know what a grieving family physically needs.
I felt this hometown embrace after my son’s accidental strangulation last year. So many from my hometown prayed for my son’s life. I texted with D.L. after the accident. I knew she would understand. Another couple from Blanding who lost their son understood my pain. So many of my classmates understood my pain.
I gained a wider hometown network over the years from Idaho, Washington, Ohio, and Lehi, Utah. These friends surrounded me in their thoughts and prayers. My local church congregation, elementary neighborhood, and Lehi wrapped my family in their arms. The ward and my family took care of my other children, the ward fed us meals, Lehi prayed for us, neighbors and teachers visited us, and so on. My son’s special education teacher visited him in the hospital. A woman who I don’t know sold candy bars as a fundraiser. The elementary and wider neighborhood donated to the fundraiser, which came to a large sum to help pay medical bills. Two women who’d lost children comforted me. A group of special women from church surrounded me in their arms. The list goes on and on.
Small towns, or our neighborhood, help us through the difficult times of a loved one’s death. I don’t know what I would have done without my hometowns spread from Washington, Utah, to Ohio.
Thank God for “small towns.”
