Didn't Know You Would Be Gone

Today my brother, David, turned nineteen. Today my sister’s friend, Kim got baptized. Today that sister died.

My mom woke me up a little after nine and asked me if I still wanted to see Kim get baptized. Of course, I said I did, since I told Kim I would on facebook. I rolled out of bed and scanned my closet for something to wear to the church service. I finally decided on a dark dress with green, blue and yellow flowers on it.

I decided to have the leftover pizza we had for dinner last night for breakfast today. I opened the pizza box once I took it out of the fridge and put the last two slices of cheese pizza on a plate and placed them in the microwave. I was just finishing the last slice when my sister, Emily came in.

“Dear sister, is that the last slice of cheese pizza?” She asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she somehow maintained a perfect smile, not at all affected by the tone of her voice.

“Yes, ‘sister dear’ it is” I replied pleasantly, like I didn’t notice the annoyance on her face.

“Fine! I’ll just make my own breakfast.

Emily was in an even worse mood because we were late. Eventually, Mom, Dad, Emily, and my six year old sister, Christine, and I all piled into the car on our way to the church. David didn’t come since he was at a party with his friends until about 3am and was really tired.

We were about fifteen minutes late, which made Emily even madder. I don’t see why she was so mad because we missed all of the music, which wasn’t that good, in my opinion. When we found Kim and followed her to the seats she saved us, next to her family. At last, the music ended and Kim stood next to the baptism tank and read out her testimony. It was pretty sad that all of this happened to her at seventeen. She finished and got in the tank and the pastor did the “dead to sin, alive in Christ” thing as he dunked her. She hurried off the stage, grabbed a towel and disappeared.

They announced that the Sunday school would be starting, so I took Christine’s little hand and lead her to the room for the five and six year olds. I dropped her off then left to go back to the service, where the pastor was talking about baptism. When he was done, they passed the plates around with the ‘wine’ and crackers and I took one and passed it down. The service ended and I went to pick up Christine who had coloured a picture of Jesus getting baptised. I have to admit, it was pretty good, for a six year old. She said it was for David’s birthday which I thought was pretty sweet.

          We found the car and everyone climbed in. Soon enough we were on a winding road, with tons of fields filled with cattle and horses on each side. There was a certain corner, which was what my mom would call ‘dangerous’. As my dad drove us around the corner, a dark blue suburban was heading straight for us. Naturally, my dad swerved into the fields. We had just stopped when we all felt something slam into the side of the car. It was the side Emily was sitting on.

          The silence was broken by Christine’s loud, piercing wail. Terrified, I turned to see where Emily’s seemingly lifeless body now lay, straining against her seatbelt. She was probably just unconscious or something; nothing serious. Her perfect, dark brown hair fell across her face in flawless waves. Then it hit me. She’s gone. But I refused to believe it. She can’t be dead. She was so young, she had a whole life ahead of her, even had a scholarship to Trinity Western University in psychology.

          I was jolted out of my thoughts by Christine’s continuing wail, like an alarm clock without an off switch. Slowly it subsided into loud, heavy sobs and I reached across the seatbelt and car seat and gently rubbed her back. She was probably crying from the shock, because she most likely didn’t know Emily was dead. If she knew she was dead, the crying would be unstoppable. Her life has touched everyone, even her neighbours and teachers.

Time froze the second the suburban hit us. Still, the only sound was Christine crying. It broke my heart to hear anyone cry, but when I heard her cry so hard, my heart shattered into a million tiny pieces. It didn’t help that my last day with her has been spent fighting. We all sat there for what felt like hours, each one hoping we would wake up to find we were having a horrible nightmare. If only.