Cause of Death, Unknown
Lessons from the fallout from an unexpected loss
Where I grew up, nothing bad really ever happened — or at least nothing really bad ever happened. If this were to play out like one of those 3-part Netflix documentaries, cliched clips of a ‘sleepy little town’, ‘children playing unsupervised in the streets’, and ‘unlocked doors’ would flicker across the opening scenes, blurring together to create a very middle-class montage of a life most could only dream of. Sure, people got sick. Sure, people worried about bills and about school, and about work. Parents got divorced, girls got pregnant too young, boys caused too much trouble, sure. But the point is, everything that happened was all within the natural rhythm of an expected life, and it lulled us all into a perpetual state of security. Nothing was unfixable, or shocking, or final.
Until Grace.
We were all 25 when she died.
Perhaps by my introduction, you thought we were younger and that this was some story on childhood loss, but the reality is, in a town like that, in a community like ours, at 25 most of us were still tightly tethered to our parents, with the bonds and habits of childhood holding fast.
Except for Grace.
