A Mystery At Ravenscroft

The Deceased

Parker

September 15th, 2021

I used to consider myself somewhat of a spiritual person. I believed there was a God, someone, some being up above in an unimaginable place, watching over us and protecting us. But after recent events, I've questioned a lot. Why is the world so unfair? How could God let something like this happen? If he cared for me and my family, why would he take one of the best things in my life away from me? How could one of the sweetest, kindest, and most passionate people ever to be in my life be taken away from me in the blink of an eye? It doesn't feel real at all.

My dad was supposed to pick up dinner for my mom and me because he knew we were stressed with work that past week. He did it without a second thought because that's just the kind of person he was. I still remember the cops coming to our front door, recounting the awful incident of that night. It was 8:00 PM when a drunk driver, not paying attention, swerved into my father's lane on the busy highway. The car in front of my dad's swerved in the other direction just in time. But my father didn't. Did he not have enough time to move? Did he not see what was going to happen? What were his final moments—his final thoughts before he...

"He died instantly upon impact," one cop explained to us. "He didn't feel any pain."

Was that supposed to make me feel better? I was so angry for so long, at the cops who were simply doing their job. I didn't even get to say goodbye. I never got to tell him that, no matter how much he got on my nerves sometimes, he was the best father any girl could've ever asked for. I never got to tell him that I loved him for one last time.

Why was this happening? How could this be happening to me? How does my dad die, but the drunk driver walks away with a few broken bones? It doesn't make sense, and it probably never will. I will never forgive what that drunk driver did that night. EVER. He managed to take so much from us in so little time. My best friend, my partner-in-crime, my role model. Gone, in the blink of an eye. I once thought our family was rock solid, that nothing could break us apart, even if someone tried. But something like this shattered me. I'm broken into pieces, and I don't know if I can be put back together again.

I have only seen my mom cry once, and that was at his funeral. My mother doesn't grieve like everyone else. She bottles up her emotions and makes herself seem fine when, truthfully, she's not. She thinks that she's hiding it well, and I let her think that. I'm not going to force her to grieve as everyone thinks she should. I try to be there for her, to comfort her, but she just wants to be alone. They were high school sweethearts, and to see him go in a matter of seconds probably broke her more than I could even imagine.

After his passing, my mother struggled with paying the bills and her mental health. I wish there was something more that I could do for her. I was just about to graduate from high school, and my father wouldn't even be there to watch me walk across the stage. In a sense, my mother wouldn't be there to see me either. She's not the same person she used to be. She was always so bubbly, joking about everything, and radiated the same light my father did. When my father passed, I think he took the light with him. My mom was there for me that day, just not the mom I used to know.

We both decided after a while that we needed a change. Sitting around with dirty dishes, being sheltered inside, and crying for most of the day was not healthy for either of us. This life that we made for ourselves here just wasn't working for us anymore. We couldn't walk the same paths or drive down the same highway where it happened. We packed up our things and decided to move to a small town about 8 hours away. I was fine with the move; I didn't really have many friends. I had people I spoke to now and then, but never a best friend and never someone I could call an honorary sibling. My mom was hesitant at first because her family has always lived in New York; that's all she's ever known. So to pick everything up and move so quickly took some persuading. We needed to stay somewhere smaller, where we could focus on each other and build ourselves back up. We found the perfect place to do just that, and it was called Nighbury Falls.