Everything In It's Time: Visiting the Site of My Grandchild's Death

"When does my summer vacation start?", I asked my kids the last time they were on the hunt for a babysitter.  Since the beginning of June, Papa and I have spent 31 days - I counted - taking care of the little grands, in various numbers and combinations.  A few times, we had all eight of them here together!  Needless to say, it's been a summer of noisy laughter, squishy hugs and sleepovers ... but not a very prolific summer of writing.

My summer of grandchildren was not without Kitty Rose, either.  In fact, many of the sultry, sunny days revolved around her; meeting with the publisher of 'her' book, gathering school supplies to donate in her memory to the school where she would have begun kindergarten this fall and tending to the pale pink vincas planted around her cemetery marker. 

This summer was also the time for me to make a brave request.  I asked Mandy to take me to the site on the lake where their car broke through the ice four-and-a-half years ago.  I wanted to see exactly where my granddaughter died.

It was the 4th of July.  We'd finished our picnic dinner and the grands were happily playing together, in no need of adult peacekeeping.  A baseball game on TV occupied the grown-ups' attention.   Out of the red, white and blue,  I asked Mandy if she knew how to drive their new boat.  'No, but I drive the jet-ski.'   Well, I wondered ... would she drive me to the channel ... to the exact spot?

I had been back and forth over the bridge many times in the past four years, but it was a stretch of imagination to try to visualize the actual place I wanted - and needed - to see.  The road above the channel is curvy and somewhat narrow.  Trees block the view and private homes line the road and shore.  There is no safe or public place to park a car and walk down to the water.  The only way to the site is by boat ... or in my case ... by jet-ski.

We set off across the lake and as we approached the passage between bays, Mandy pointed out the memorial marker that son-in-law posted on a tree near the bridge.  It's not placed exactly where the car went down, but it's safe on public land where no one should disturb, destroy or remove it.  My eldest granddaughter told me that when she passed through the channel with Belle and son-in-law last summer, they stopped to say a prayer.  I wasn't aware of this special place of remembrance or the prayer ritual until that moment.  It was a private matter.

Mandy drove under the road, circled around, waited for other boat traffic to pass and then we slowly made our way back through the channel.  I asked her exactly where the ice broke.  "It was right about here," she said, pointing toward some rocks that edged a well manicured backyard.  I knew from photos on the news and pictures in our local papers that she wasn't exactly right.  The car went down directly under the bridge.  Her memory had to be of the rescue site.  I didn't correct her.  Someday I'll pull out the news articles ... when we're all ready for that step.  There's no hurry.

As we approached the handmade plaque posted on the tree, Mandy turned around to tell me that this was the first time since the accident that she's been through the channel with her eyes open.  Immediately, I felt terrible that I asked her to do this!  But, she could have said 'no'.  And I believe that she would have said 'no' if she really wanted to keep her eyes closed any longer. 

Everything in it's time ... we recognize when we're ready to take that difficult step, to listen to what we've not wanted to hear, to see the unimaginable, to face the hard realities, to challenge our grief and to move on.  Abruptly on the 4th of July, for reasons both unexpected and unknown, I was urged to push myself forward on my journey.

We all know, yet we lament the fact, that grief doesn't disappear magically after a week, a month or any other specific length of time, after we return to work, after another grandchild is born or after any other of life's events.  It takes time and we need to be patient with our loved ones, our friends and neighbors and, most importantly, with ourselves.  Indeed, everything in it's own time.

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To everything there is a season, 
a time for every purpose under Heaven.

He has made everything beautiful in its time.

~ Ecclesiastes 3:11

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