One day before…
YUCK… THE BEFORE and THE AFTER…One foot in the past, 13 yrs ago, 1 day before Jamie died) and one foot here today…That very definitive, splitting line between the then and the now… Every song and every movie that I watch, I always think to myself, did this movie came out before Jamie died or this song came out after Jamie died?… if you think it’s weird and that, here I go again, talking about Jamie and rehashing the memories and living in the past…DON’T judge … unless GOD FORBID (and I have been saying this all week… I wouldn’t wish this pain on my worse enemy) , you have to walk in my shoes. Until you know… you DON’T know, so thank your lucky stars and if you get annoyed that I’m rehashing, yet again, please…. leave my post and go look up something on Pinterest . this is for me and my way of remembering, connecting , processing and feeling all the emotions, and then getting on with my day … the ripple effects of losing a child lasts a lifetime…it’s not one singular event that happens, and then you grieve, eat all the casseroles people bring you, be sad for a little while and then… TA-DA!!!! it’s over … and then ,you forget about your loss ( how can you, when it is your own CHILD??!!!) and maybe, on occasion remember them on their birthday or something and smile …NO…it is AN EVERYDAY longing and missing and comstant tugging of your heartstrings and yearning to still have them in your life and to watch them thrive, succeed, fail, LIVE, LOVE … and to ultimately, have them bury … US, not them… these feelings are exacerbated, the week leading up to the anniversary of the loss.
OK, so where was I?…
I found these pictures taken the day before , 13 years ago today and the day of Jamie McHenry’s accident, showing what Jim, Emily and I were doing. As Jamie was relaxing on the beach and sending us pictures of his feet , I was busy with tax returns. we felt bad that Emily wasn’t really getting a spring break vacation, so I put my tax returns aside for a few days and we took her on a quick getaway. We left Monday, April 1st, 2013 and went to our cabin in Blue Ridge. I remember it was like old MacDonald farm at the cabin because some chickens decided to roost and hatch eggs near our air-conditioning unit . The next morning, we left for a 2 night stay at Fontana Dam Resort in NC (we took Jamie and Emily there to Fontana back in 2004 and had a great time). So we got there early Tues morning and had a wonderful time with Emily Tuesday, playing some tennis, 36 holes of frisbee golf with Emily and then Wednesday, April 3rd , we went mountain biking in Tsali and then took a sunset cruise on Fontana Lake on a boat. After our boat ride on April 3rd, we went back to the cabin we had rented there at Fontana, changed and went to dinner at the restaurant in Fontana Lodge. It was around 8:00 pm as we were sitting at dinner, I noticed that one of our friends, Charlie Petry had called. Cell reception up there was very sketchy and the message had gone straight to voice mail. I was wondering why Charlie had called.. he and I worked together on a payroll company a few months prior to that and I immediately thought he was calling regarding an issue from that . I listened to the voicemail message and can remember EVERY inflection and sense of urgency in Charlie’s voice when he said, “Christine, you need to call Bob Croawell right away, there’s been an accident”. Bob had been trying to call us but was not able to get through with the limited cell coverage. Emily must have seen the panic in my face and started asking what was wrong. Jim had gone to use the restroom so I got up and found him and told him what the message said. We immediately tried to call Bob but the cell coverage was not working in the restaurant, so we went to the lobby of the resort. Fontana Dam Resort is a popular place for Appalachian Trail hikers and it’s a very laid back, tree-hugger, granola kind of place and it attracts a lot of cerebral hiker types. The lobby there looks like a big ski lodge and has that library feeling…quiet and laid back…there must have been around 30 people sitting around the lobby reading books, and on their laptops, sitting by the fire . We went up to the desk and asked to use their landline. When Jim got in touch with Bob, they had just arrived by ambulance to the hospital in Stuart Florida and the doctor got on the phone and told Jim what happened and that Jamie had just passed away. The surreal dichotomy between that laid-back, quiet setting of the lodge and The entire McHenry Family SCREAMING , sobbing and completely falling apart is something I will never forget…. the looks of concern and confusion from those people in the lobby as they stared over in curiosity, peering over their books and handheld devices watching “those people” react to that awful, heartbreaking news is another thing I won’t forget. I felt like I having an out of body experience or that I was in a play or a movie… There was no way this could happen to my Jamie .
But one other thing I also will not forget is the kindness and compassion we received from some of those strangers who learned what had happened… the staff of the lodge, the other visitors… There was one family in particular who had 2 younger sons with them and they sat Emily down and got her to calm down and talk to them about her older brother while Jim and I were overcome with grief. This family lived in TN and offered to drive us back home that night, a 4 hour drive back to Atlanta. We decided that we should not drive back that night (it was raining and the lodge was up high on a mountain and we were in a state where we could not digest or fathom what had just happened). So we stayed overnight in that cabin, with very little sleep ( I remember there was a whimsical picture of a pack of wolves on the wall in the bedroom and I just kept staring at that picture, unable to sleep), and waited until the next day to drive back home and begin to call family and friends and tell them the news and to begin taking care of arrangements.
I look at that picture of myself, dancing with the bear, so relaxed and unaware of what was going to happen. just 2 days before our world would completely change. I want to time travel back there and somehow change fate and rewrite the story to have Jamie here with us. I look at those pictures on the boat of Emily and I and Emily and Jim and get chills, thinking they were taken only 2 hours before Jamie’s accident…2 hours before our world was completely changed and divided in half, between “before” and “after” Jamie’s death.
We miss you SO very much, JamieBoy
❤️💔