Beyond Tears: Living After Losing a Child by Mitchell Ellen

Author:Mitchell, Ellen [Mitchell, Ellen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2009-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

ANDREA LEVINE

For several months, I had been having fleeting thoughts that someone in our family would die. I tried to put such notions aside, but could not and found them most disturbing.

On an unusually mild Saturday afternoon in December of 1987, Andrea and I went shopping for a new outfit for her. My daughter truly had a passion for shopping. We joked that her motto was “out of the bag and onto my back.” But it was not only for herself that Andrea shopped. It was usually Andrea who thought to buy the greeting cards, and it was she who reminded her older brother and sister when there was a family birthday or anniversary to be recognized with a gift.

As we walked, she told me to remember that she was an organ donor. I looked at her and wondered what she was thinking. “So what,” was all I said.

That evening Andrea left to drive to New Jersey to visit a friend. Typical of mothers everywhere, I cautioned her to start out early and drive carefully.

“Ma,” she said, “don’t worry about me; worry about the other drivers.” Those were to be the last words Andrea ever said to me.

At 11 P.M. a police officer phoned and said Andrea had been in a serious car accident in Bloomfield, New Jersey. When our children were young, we had always told them to phone if they had any difficulty and when we could hear their voice we would know all was well. I asked the police officer if I could speak to Andrea. When he said I could not, I knew we were up against something serious.

Andrea was the youngest of our three children. She was caring and sensitive with a warm, winning personality and a ready smile. She made and kept friends with ease and was in constant touch seemingly with all of them at once by telephone. The image of her talking on two phones simultaneously will forever bring a smile to my face.

She was able to pick and choose her friends wisely because she had an uncanny ability to cut to the chase. She sensed who was genuine and who was not. She was a dark-haired, cute and tiny dynamo whom we nicknamed “Wheels” because she was always spinning, talking, going and doing. When Andrea was at home, the house was always busy.

She was our family personality and she made us laugh with such pranks as filling the refrigerator with family shoes when she found it depressingly empty after her big brother left for college.

Apparently, Andrea lost her way that December night. She was alone in the car and in the wrong place at the wrong time when a young man of eighteen plowed into the driver’s side of her car. There were no drugs or alcohol involved but it was his first time at the wheel. He was just an inexperienced driver who walked away without a scratch.

We rushed down to the hospital trauma center in New Jersey where Andrea had been taken and was already undergoing surgery.

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