It's Wednesday again, and I am feeling such a strange mixture of sorrow and elation that I am hard-put to find the words to express myself.
The elation is easily accounted for. Today my son Caleb, who has been torn between two equally desirable colleges - a SUNY and a CUNY - that had accepted him, found out that one of his best friends since elementary school has been accepted by the SUNY school and will be going there. This tipped the scales, and the indecision is at an end. My kid will be going to the SUNY, and with any luck they can be roommates. Everyone is overjoyed; indeed, all the parents in the equation are delighted, and not just because state schools are cheaper. My son's BFF is easily one of the nicest, smartest, kindest, funniest people I know, and he also manages to combine a completely upright moral nature and a desire to do the right thing without ever being priggish or annoying about it. He's the best friend you'd want your kid to have.
Now that college will definitely be outside of the range of the NYC subway system, my son stopped dragging his feet and went to the DMV at Herald Square with me this afternoon for the Learner's Permit we had been hocking him to get since last summer. He was just as nervous before taking the written exam as I recall having been when I was his age - it seemed like it would be such a disgrace to fail it, and I'd approached it with the same knot in my gut engendered by the taking of the SAT. He came out of the testing area with the same look of scornful amazement mingled with triumph and delight I'd experienced, too, and uttered, almost word for word, what I'd said upon passing the test: "I can't believe how easy that was!"
We had plenty of time to get over our delight by the time we were finally called to the window so I could produce the Amex and fork over $90, and then we were on our way, having spent most of the afternoon sitting on the hard wooden benches and staring at the red numbers flashing on the board in no order of any kind that would give us a hint as to when it would be our turn.
So here we are. Two major milestones reached in a single day. That's the elation.
The sorrow is more complex. Today would have been the 25th birthday of Ella Kottick Bandes, daughter of Judy Kottick and Ken Bandes. Would have been - because Ella was struck and killed by a bus at the age of 23 on the last day of January in 2013.
My own stepdaughter, Brianna, who should also have turned 25 this month, died at the same age as Ella in November of 2012, and we met Ella's parents at a support group for bereaved parents. We met Ella's parents - and so many others. The parents of Michael...of Jesse...of Shana...of Renee...Ryan, Sammy, Ben, Abby...
I could fill the page with names. Each child an exquisite, unique and beautiful treasure; irreplaceable in our lives. A emptiness that can never be filled.
The milestones my son hits are bittersweet to my husband and me. We remember going through the college application process with Bri. Every college acceptance that came in for my son this spring made us very happy. We cheered; we congratulated; we boasted on Facebook. And then later, in the quiet of the bedroom, we shed a few tears as we thought of the graduate school years that Bri should have been having now. Today, I re-lived Bri's nervousness when she went to get her learner's permit, in a small Adirondack town where she'd spent every summer since she was three years old. And yes - I even smiled, recalling the nervous wreck that was Bri when she walked in to take the written test prancing back out with the same scornful, "I can't believe how easy that was!"
You view life through a different lens after a child in your family has died. I don't know whether that former, careless state of perfectly happy existence is ever attained again. There is always a tinge of blue to even the most joyous occasion, because there is always that awareness of somebody essential who should be there - but is not.
Today on her birthday, I am thinking of Ella, who, like Bri, attained all the milestones that Caleb is now starting to achieve. The college acceptances. The selection of the school. The learner's permit. All those little steps that are actually giant steps on the road toward maturity and independence.
As I sat on the hard benches of the DMV, I had ample time to reflect, and to look around me at the people who were there to get their driver's licenses. I wondered if any of them were thinking what I was thinking - that they are being given an awesome responsibility when they are handed that license. That when they get behind that steering wheel, they are literally engaging in an activity that can mean life or death, for themselves and for others as well. That a moment of poor judgement - glancing at that cell phone to see what your girlfriend just texted, or getting impatient and speeding around another car, without pausing to consider that maybe the reason they've stopped and are blocking your path is that a pedestrian you can't see is in the crosswalk - can mean a lifetime of agony and remorse. That is, if it doesn't cost you your own life. And that it is never, no, never your prerogative to endanger others because you decided that you can handle your liquor and anyway, you're sure you drive better after you've had a few drinks.
I hope that none of the people I was looking at will ever have to learn, in the hard way that our family learned, that life is so precious and can vanish in an instant. As I looked around me, I said a little prayer that the hard, selfless task that Judith Kottick and Ken Bandes have taken on in Ella's memory - lobbying for reduced speed limits and safer streets, with pedestrian rights given priority over vehicular traffic - will bear fruit, and that Vision Zero - No more traffic deaths! - becomes a reality.
Today, on Ella's birthday, please take an extra few moments for her sake and don't blow through that light. Today, ignore your cell phone's buzz if you are driving, and remember that no message or voicemail could be more important than your responsibility to drive safely and get to where you're going without hurting someone. Today, visit the Families for Safe Streets page on Facebook and give it a "Like." Today, celebrate Ella by checking off the Organ Donor card on you licence. More than one person is walking around today, alive, because Ella was chose to be an organ donor. Other families were directly spared the inconsolable grief of losing a loved one because of Ella's generosity.
I never met Ella while she was here. I missed out. I know the wonderful young woman she was, because I have seen her artwork and watched the videos of dances she choreographed. I have seen the tributes from her friends, who are about to dedicate a permanent installation of her artwork at the college she attended. I hear the stories about the kindnesses she performed, and the funny things she said. I see how dearly she was - and still is - loved by all who know her. Please help me honor Ella, today and every day, by going through your life with greater gentleness, and with a heightened regard for the fact that the small, simple actions you take can save a life.
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