The Grandmother Story – part two

        The story that came to us was that one Donald Ray Cerf, whose name I have NOT changed in this story, pulled off a high-rise rest area and on to the highway at the speed of 25MPH.  25!!!!!!!!!  He had not turned on his lights yet, so my son could not see him until it was too late.  I know Karl saw him.  He knew he was going to die, because the impact tore off the right side of his face, among other things.  That means that Karl was trying to get out of the situation by changing lanes, but it was too late.  A wonderful man named Walter Poole, whose name I have also left true to life, out of gratitude,  had passed Karl only a few minutes before the accident, and reported (many many times throughout the ensuing years) that Karl had been wide-eyed and alert.  My boy was not asleep behind the wheel.  Mr. Poole said he glanced in his mirror and everything was fine….nothing seemed out of the ordinary.  The next thing he knew, there was a giant cloud of smoke and dust on the road behind him.  Being the extraordinary soul that he has proven himself to be, Mr. Poole went back to see what happened, and he was there to report what he had seen and noticed to the Louisiana Police.  Had it not been for him, we would always have the question of whether Karl had fallen asleep at the wheel unanswered.  What followed was an incredibly ugly, unbelievable thing. 

        That Cerf BASTARD told the police what happened, but he changed his story THREE TIMES ON THE SCENE.  Later on, he changed it yet again.  I will not go into details of what he said, for I am angry enough just thinking about it that I am afraid I will induce a stroke or a heart attack on myself if I write it out.  At the time, we did not know that that horrible man had not spoken truthfully about the accident, so all of us were inclined to feel very sorry for Mr. Cerf.  I asked Rose if she planned on suing him, and she looked at me with sorrow-filled, weary eyes and said no, because we all agreed that Mr. Cerf would have to live with it on his conscience for the rest of his life that he had caused an accident which resulted in a man’s death.  He had not admitted that it was his fault, but the proper investigative authorities found out certain details very quickly.  Upon impact, both trucks’ tachometers had locked, showing the speeds they were driving.  Karl was driving 60MPH, which was the speed limit at the time for 18-wheeled trucks.   Cerf’s showed his speed to be 25MPH.  Also, the lights had not been turned on on Cerf’s truck.  It was 5:45a.m., so it was not yet light outside.  My son quickly caught glimpse of his fate, and I am willing to bet he prayed, in the last few seconds of life he had, to see his family at least one more time before he died.  He had a troublesome relationship with his namesake, but he loved his family with an all-consuming passion.  I would almost swear to it on a Bible that his last thoughts were of his wife and children; maybe about my husband and me, too.  He had such love inside him, and it was there one minute; gone the next.  My brilliant son, the jack-of-all-trades who could learn ANYTHING with almost no effort and DO anything just as easily, was gone.  How do I deal with that?  My pride and joy were LITERALLY torn apart!  I was RAGING at God this time!!!!!!  I almost thought I hated God for this.  I did not speak to Him at all except to utter a quick "Forgive me" every night before bed.  This went on for a year or two, but a dear friend, who was a Rabbi in our town, had a nice talk with me and helped me see why I was in the wrong.  I’m not even Jewish, but he took the time and had the compassion to talk to me as a friend about my tragedy.  Eventually, I was able to get over my anger with God, though I was still bitter about my son’s death and my husband’s terminal illness.  Why must everyone I love be taken away from me?  That is one question I know there is no answer to while I am still alive.  Maybe God will answer it upon my own death. 

        I wanted to die.  I thought many times about killing myself.  What was there left to live for now?  I always had an answer to that.  My husband.  My grandchildren.  And little did I know that I would live so long as to see two absolutely beautiful, perfect great-grandchildren enter my life. 

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ot;Monotype Corsiva"; color: blue;”>        A little more than a month after my son’s death, Rose called an old boyfriend and told him to come see her.  This was kept secret from me for quite a while, and I almost did not believe it when I found out!  My best friend/daughter-in-law was going to have a BOYFRIEND….and her husband of 19 years was not even cold in the ground yet!!!!!!!  I think I could have dealt with this a lot better had it not been the person it was.  This man had dated Rose for a year or so before she married Karl.  They had been engaged, but he broke it off.  Well into her third pregnancy, eight YEARS later, he shows up when Karl is out on the road and tells Rose that she is the only woman he has ever really loved, and his life is not complete without her!!!!!  The NERVE of that bastard, trying to break up my son’s marriage!  When Rose told me this, she practically begged me not to tell Karl about it.  I told her I would have to be out of my mind to tell him anything like this!  He would kill the man, and then my son would spend the rest of his life in prison!!!!  As it winds up, I wonder if I SHOULD have told him, after all, because at least my boy would be alive now….if God allowed that. 

        On the day that I discovered the new man was visiting Rose’s house, I marched into the living room, where he was hiding from me, and proceeded to tell him just what I thought.  Before I did, though, I yanked his hat from his head, as he had pulled it down to cover his eyes, and I have to look at someone and know they’re looking at me when I talk to them.  I wanted to spit in his face, but I held back and only told him that he had an incredible nerve, coming into my dead son’s house, trying to rekindle what should have been long-gone, and breaking up my son’s family just so he could have the woman he had always wanted!  I let him know that I had absolutely NO respect for him, and that I now had no respect for Rose because of his being there.  Then came yet another blow.

        My grandson, Karl, Jr., took me outside and asked me to leave his house.  My own grandson?!!!!  Kicked me out of MY SON’S house?!!!!!!  I left.  I was totally heartbroken that my grandson could possibly side with that bastard instead of me.  He tried telling me that he had to look out for his mother’s well-being, but his mother’s best interests would have been served if he had kicked that man out instead!  But he made me see I was not welcome there.  I swore to myself I would never step foot in that household again.  I did not keep to that, but I DID intend to. 

        How could I have so misjudged Rose after knowing her so well for so many years?  She had been my best friend for almost twenty years, for heaven’s sake!  Did Karl mean so little to her that she could so quickly replace him?  What was wrong with this picture?  From the moment I was kicked out of that house, things took a drastic turn for the worse.  My grandchildren turned against me.  All they cared about was their BITCH mother!  Rose had fooled me so completely.  I had really believed that she truly loved Karl, but now I knew better.  If she wanted to be with that bastard instead, that was up to her, but I would not vanish quietly into the night.  I was NOT going to lose my grandchildren without a fight, and what a horrid fight it turned out to be.

End of chapter one.