NOLA Notes

“Fifteen years; seems like yesterday.”  That’s what the email read today.  I had it marked on my calendar and had planned to call but wanted to wait til Sun was quiet.

The death was on impact.  If there is any mercy, it is in that he did not suffer and that he hit a bridge support and not another car.  Paul fell asleep behind the wheel.

I got the call fifteen years ago from my father.  My blood ran icy cold.  I couldn’t breathe or swallow.  “How can that be? His brother, his twin, how will he go on?”  I called his brother, my cousin.  We cried together.  We both coincidentally lived in Baton Rouge, our families in New Orleans.

After the funeral, we returned to separate homes in Baton Rouge and resumed our separate classes.  But our lives were no longer separate.  His only sibling was gone.  Dead.  In an accident that rendered Paul and even his car unrecognizable.  I owed it to both of my cousins to be more involved now.  To be David’s sister.  I made a solemn oath to God that I’d watch over him and protect him.

And though it is beyond my means to protect him, really, I do watch over him still.  And I still miss Paul.

Fifteen years.  Seems like yesterday.