statistics

Statistics

I watch as my niece sleeps. Her blond hair is a curly mass of tangles on her head and one of her black patent leather maryjanes has fallen to the floor. The other hangs by a strap from her white stocking foot. Watching her, I am reminded of her mother. My baby sister, the child everyone said my parents couldn’t have. Her daughter shares her angelic blond hair and her sparkling blue eyes. The same effervescent spirit glows within them both. But now the spirit of one has been carelessly extinguished. A darkness that is too deep for me to comprehend has swallowed my sister and left her child with a scar that will never heal.

The morning after the funerals Kasen-Marie is a shadow of the happy child she was only a few days ago. Her usually bright blue eyes have faded into a stormy gray and she only listlessly stares at cartoons she once would have been mimicking. At five years old, she is too young to understand the demon that has stolen away her mother. I never learned to understand the man who my sister loved. Someone who could not appreciate the two angels he had been allowed to have and could only see himself clearly through a full bottle.

Our priest came by today. He wants me to encourage Kasen to go back to school. He told me I must learn to forgive him, or Kasen will grow up in an atmosphere where she will feel hatred for him. I know it is deplorable for me to wonder if it’s so wrong for her to hate the man who killed her father. They want me to forgive the man who took away one of the only people I have ever loved. Father Marcus said I should be grateful that God left me my sister’s daughter. I am. I am so grateful I could not express it in words. I just hurt when I think it will be me who will help Kasen get ready for her first date, sr. prom, her graduation. When she marries it will be I who will hand her into the waiting arms of her husband. May he be a better man than those I have experienced.

I never thought my beautiful little sister, miracle child of my parents and the golden girl of our hometown, would become a statistic. Just another of thousands killed by drunk drivers every year. I’ll bet she never thought it would be her husband who killed her.