deja vu

I am having a major case of deja vu today...but first, some background:

In March of 1998, one of my very closest friends passed away w/ cancer. His name was Matt Bundren, or "Bubba" as we affectionately called him. "Bubba" was 14 1/2 when he passed away; I was a Junior in highschool. I remember the day like it was yesterday--it was in the morning at DuBourg when we were all standing around in the cafeteria waiting to go upstairs and start the day. Katie Thompson told me. I called my mom from the office before I headed to homeroom and told her. Then they announced it on DB TV that morning, making me remember the time leading up to his death--his 2 brothers (Matt, or "JB", and Adam, or "Bones") & dad shaving their heads when he was going through chemo, then all his football buddies at CBC following suit; the way he tried so damn hard to keep a positive outlook; all the great times we'd had at grade school, the pool, and just hanging out...

As soon as I got in the car that day after school, I broke down and mom just hugged me. I had dealt w/ death before--great uncles & aunts, older family members and the like. But I had never had to deal w/ the death of a friend--much less one who was only 14 1/2 years old and had so much to live for.

I hate to compare it like this, but the wake was like standing in line for the bathroom at a sporting event. It snaked from the room he was in, down the hallway, out into the foyer, and outside the Kutis funeral home there on Gravois. (The 'most dreaded', as I like to call it.) Thank God they didn't have an open casket for Bubba; it was hard enough handling the death of a friend, I don't think I could have handled actually seeing him.

The funeral was standing-room only; people lined the walls of the church where the mass took place. "On Eagles' Wings" choked everyone into sobs-which it usually tends to do, anyway--and JB gave a very beautiful eulogy.

I can't even begin to imagine how the family felt (and I'm sure still feels) or dealt w/ a loss of (for lack of a better term) a child. And honestly, I can't really describe how I felt. I know I was very bitter about it for quite a while: I'm supposed to be Catholic, never questioning God, and then he goes and takes one of my closest friends in such a horrible way, when he was so young? And a bit of reality hit, too: people my age can and do die. It made me so sad to finally realize that and accept it. My friend was gone and there was nothing I (or anyone else, for that matter) could do to get him back. I couldn't lay on a picnic table at the Fall Festival w/ him & my cousin Todd and name stars anymore...I wouldn't be able to watch as he expressed open-mouthed shock when Todd threw his boxers into the pool...and I wouldn't be able to get any more of those great teddy bear hugs that he freely handed out. But of course I had to try to look on the bright side: Bubba wouldn't be suffering anymore, spending countless hours and days at the hospital, undergoing chemotherapy & losing his hair, etc. I had to have faith that (going a little theological here) that was God's plan for him, however unfair it may have been, and that Bubba was in a better place than any of us could imagine. That's what got me through it. (And some of you say I'm a bad Catholic...)

So why this deja vu? Friday afternoon when Dustin, mom, and I got home from cake shopping, my brother dropped a bomb on us: Elizabeth (a little girl who is just 16 or 17, that RJ had gone all through grade school w/, and that I used to babysit) had been air-lifted to SLU Hospital Thursday night / Friday morning after a bad car accident. She and two of her friends were either going to or coming from Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville when the care they were riding in was T-boned. The driver apparently had only minor bumps / bruises, one other little girl (as we found out later to be another of RJ's ex-classmates) would need a lung transplant, and Elizabeth was the worst. She had a broken pelvis, swelling on the brain, and was in a coma.

Over the next few days we got bits and pieces of more information--her status, plans to visit her, ideas / suggestions as to what to do--from various sources. Then on Sunday, my mom told us they had decided to "let her go"--3 catscans had shown her as completely brain dead. I broke down. My brother, tough ass that he is, teared up a little but wouldn't let himself cry. But it's like all these floodgates were opened for me--obviously upset for the family as I knew them all, deja vu bc I know EXACTLY how my brother is feeling, and again that little bit of bitterness.

Elizabeth is being laid out tonight at the 'most dreaded' funeral home--the Kutis on Gravois--and I'm sure she'll have a line just like Bubba did. And I try so hard to think positive that this was "God's plan" for her--but how do you console someone (or yourself) w/ that kind of answer?

Again, my thoughts and prayers go out to the Eveker family & friends, and all that knew Elizabeth.