the difference between You and Me

I know that you knew them as well.  But I am the one who experienced the impact, I saw their blood, I saw their eyes.  I heard her last breaths and the long high-pitched beep coming from the machines.  I felt the car crash that killed them; I felt her hand grow limp.  

I was there, I experienced, and I know what happened.  You were all spared the graphics, you weren't told how they were positioned, you didn't see how their dead eyes stared back at you, and nobody told you what the blood smelled like. 

You saw the van and you cringed, you saw pictures of the scene and you turned away, you knelt by their coffin and cried. I was in the van, at the scene; there was no place to turn to escape the destruction. I didn't see them with the makeup, folded arms and closed eyes so that they looked almost peaceful and at rest, I saw them bloody and broken.  

Many times when bodies are recovered, family and friends are told not to watch, not to be at the scene because it is a memory that you do not want to have.  You don't want to see them in that state.  I know the impact that killed them, I watched them die.  And I have that memory.

So, I am sorry that you tragically lost your child, sibling, grandchild, niece, nephew, cousin, boyfriend, friend, acquaintance.  But you didn't experience their death like I did, you didn't see what I saw, hear what I heard, smell what I smelled, or feel what I felt.



RestInPeace.