Is it over yet?

2007 has been a very difficult year. I am ready for it to be over with. Not that I'm going to be doing anything spectacular on New Year's Eve, trust me, but I am really feeling like it's about time to begin a year over from scratch and work through a lot of things that need attending to.

Since my last entry we have suffered another very sad passage. One of Sadie's friends from her new school passed away. His name was Grant Aleo and he was one of the first friends that Sadie made at Springstead, along with his girlfriend Alex. I had given him and Alex rides home after school many times before Sadie began taking the bus. He was a sweet boy, soft-spoken and he'd always talk to Penny on the ride, which I found endearing.

(Jean-in terms of a general appearance and vibe, think of our dear friend Pat from back home.)

The morning he died Sadie called me from the bathroom at school, with a very bad connection on the cell, crying hysterically. All I could here her say was the word "died" in between tears and static. I began shaking and barked into the phone to text me. Her text came with the horrible news: Grant died last night.

I immediately texted her back to just go to the office right away. I raced to the school crying. My heart was swallowed up with grief all over again, for I have had a fresh taste of just how awful and final death can be. I kept thinking about his family and all of these confused kids who counted him among their own.

With minimal delay I retrieved Sadie from school and we spent the rest of the day in a stupor, intermittently crying and walking around like zombies. How absolutely unfair it is that someone so young could have their life snuffed out in an instant. All of that promise of what lies ahead absolutely gone.

For the record, the girl driving was not drunk. This was a rumor that began circulating immediately. She is currently still in an ICU following reconstructive skull surgery. Grant's was the only fatality. Sadie's ex-boyfriend Ronnie was in the crash and was in the hospital for 2 days for a concussion and he looks like he's going to be fine. The fourth passenger, another girl, was discharged from the ER the night of the accident.

The kids have been tremendous. They have been visiting Grant's family from the get-go, which his mother and father find very therapeutic. For the first week after the accident kids gathered by the dozens or more to hold vigils at favorite hangouts. They have collected hundreds of dollars for the families affected by the accident. They held a lovely vigil at a park where over a hundred of them gathered to give speeches and be together. On the day of the funeral they let off at least 99 red balloons, maybe more, at 7:32 am in the high school football field.

Following that was the funeral, the first I've gone to since Rob's. I drove Sadie and her friends Vince and Samantha up to Bushnell National Cemetery where the masses gathered for a brief service followed by paying respects to the family. More red balloons.

I cried so hard watching those balloons go and watching the coffin get loaded on to a truck with the flowers for burial. I asked Grant to please say Hello to my husband, and Grandma Shaw, and my Aunt Tootie, and her husband, and some other relatives and friends if he should happen to bump into them, if that in fact is what happens when you die.

And then I thought that maybe that's not what happens at all. Maybe our souls just continue to recycle themselves into other lives. Maybe Grant's just getting ready to give life another try in another form and maybe my late husband is already back on Earth (or possibly still in someone's belly) a baby somewhere, starting out fresh.

Either way sounds like some kind of salvation.