The next life

It’s funny the way things turn out sometimes. One day your world is as normal as can be- what is it they say - as American as apple pie. That was my family. We happy together in all our disfunction and all our drama, at the end of the day it was always us- the McCrays against the world. I can still see that day as clear as glass. I can still hear the sound of the basketball bouncing on the concrete. I can still see Griffin laughing as he blocks yet another of my perfect shots. I can still feel the summer sun beating down on us as we played. I can still smell dinner cooking in the house. Perhaps worst of all is that I can still feel what it was like the moment our entire world turned upside down. The one split second where things turn and you don’t know how you ever moved on from that moment. Time stands still in your mind, but the word... well the world has to keep turning. “Griffin, Cordry... there’s been an accident.” I don’t know how she chocked those words out that day. I do know that she couldn’t say anything else, but instead fell to her knees in a puddle of grief and tears. Our mother so crying and screaming and pounding her fists against the grass and cursing the lord while at the same time begging for his help. Victoria came out to help to explain what was going on while Griff and I tried to understand exactly what had happened. The whole scene was a disaster. A crowd of people too confused and too anxious to get any real information. Victoria too caught up in our mother to explain. Her three children standing by and firing off questions were just as confused and scared as we were. There was an accident, that was all we knew. That was all they could bear to explain, and the five of us that didn’t know could only use our deepest fears to fill in the blanks. We were all right of course, and yet all so very wrong.