Losing Owen

The monitor let out a final stretched beeeeep. The body lying in the bed was now stiff as stone and cold as ice. The nurse let out a sad sigh and exited the room. She knew how hard it was to deliver news like this, but it didn’t stop her.

As soon as they heard the news, Sophi felt a sob creeping up her throat. Tears rushed to her eyes. All at once, all of her emotions spilled onto the Kleenex in her hand.

Owen’s mother hugged her tightly. She, too, was crying, but much less since she’d already cried so much. Soon after, the entire Cox family was crowded into a huddle in the waiting room. A wet, soggy, and sad huddle.

“I’m so sorry…” the nurse said with sweet sympathy. “I know there’s not much I can do to help, but if there is, please let me know.”

For another hour, the Cox family, along with Sophi, cried.

A part of them would now be gone forever.

Sophi

Sometimes, it’s the people you hate at first that you end up loving the most.

That’s exactly what happened here.

Owen was my boyfriend, but at first, he was the annoying band kid that wouldn’t shut up during rehearsal. 

Yup. He was one of them.

He was a percussionist. You could’ve handed him anything, though - anything - and he could’ve played it. Guitar, piano, violin, cello, clarinet- absolutely anything and everything.

I’m a floutist. First chair, to be exact.

I remember the day I fell for him. He was shooting spitballs through one of those plastic straws he got from the cafeteria, and he hit me in the back of the head.

I know it’s already off to a bad start, but stay with me.

Out of impulse, I stood up, cracked my knuckles, and marched up to him, ready to throw fists.

I was ready to throw my first punch when his best friend, Lucas, caught my fist. Keep in mind, Lucas was the best defenseman for the football team, and towered at an impressive six feet two inches tall. I was a whole foot shorter than him, and knew that if I didn’t back off, I’d be screwed. I flared my nostrils and marched back to my seat, salty about what just went down.

I made it through rehearsal, but at the end, when the teacher left, Owen got his spitballs back out again. This time, he was aiming at me on purpose.

He hit me every shot. 

Eventually, he ran out of ammunition and stopped.

I stormed right up to him, almost releasing the anger inside of me.

“This. Is. War,” I said through gritted teeth. “Tomorrow. After school. Practice field. Spitball tournament. Be there.”

“If you say so…” he said, “...princess.”

That was it. I was done with this kid and I didn’t even know his name.

The next day, I had my plastic boba straw locked and loaded with the finest crafted spitballs around. A combination of spit, gum, glue, and paper did the trick.

I had my very closest friends; Rebecca, Julia, Rachel, Rose, and Lily Grace. 

We were ready to attack.

Jill, another one of my friends, stepped into the middle of the field. 

“ON MY MARK! GET SET… FIRE!!!”

“Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!” I shouted. I took dirt straight from the ground and rubbed it onto my face like those Cherokee warriors.

Owen and his friends charged from behind the foam mats the team used for practice. We darted out from behind the shed.

Lucas was coming in hot, but I was too focused on beating Owen to notice. He ran straight at me and threw me to the ground.

The impact was bad, but the fact that I landed on concrete was even worse. 

My head was throbbing. My teeth were sore, and I couldn’t breathe.

And Lucas just went back to playing.

Owen, however, ran straight towards me.

I thought he was about to give it to me, but I was wrong. 

“PAUSE THE GAME! PAUSE! PAUSE!!” he screeched. 

And for the first time ever, as he was looking down at me, my feelings toward him changed.

He gave me his hand and lifted me onto my feet. My foot was sore from when Lucas landed on it, and Owen carried me to the side of the shed. “CONTINUE!” he shouted.

He set me on the ground and took a seat next to me.

“Hey… are you alright?” he asked me calmly.

“No,” I replied. “I just got trucked by a seventh-grade giant.”

We both chuckled. We locked eyes, and it sparked something deep inside of me.

“Can we start over?” he asked, his bright green eyes sparkling.

“Sure,” I replied.

That afternoon was probably the best of my life. All we did the entire time was talk, joke, laugh, and occasionally make obnoxious fart noises at our friends.

That night, when he left, I’d caught feelings for him.

We started dating two months later, and when he died, we were high school graduates.

We knew it was meant to be.

If he hadn’t gotten into that car accident, we would still be together.

Stacy

I shut the garage door and stopped the car. I stepped into the house and went straight to bed.

I grabbed my bible and opened it to a random page. I knew there was something there about being in heaven. Something about where Owen was now.

I found the perfect verse, just from opening to a random page. 

“We have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven - not built by human hands.” 1 Corinthians 5:1.

“He’s in a better place now,” I whispered under my breath.

Even then, I felt better. In the midst of this chaos and sadness and anger, I felt peace.

That night, I told him that he could take his friend and his girlfriend to a baseball game. It sounded like fun to me.

“Be safe!” I’d told them. “Stay away from the bar!”

His friend didn’t listen.

Owen and Sophi stayed as far away from the  bar as they could. I knew that I could count on them to obey my rules.

Lucas didn’t.

He was at the bar the whole time, and by the time the game was over, he was a completely different person than he had started out being.

He harassed Owen and Sophi, threatening to hurt them if he didn’t let him drive them home. Keep in mind, this guy was six and a half feet tall and weighed almost 320 pounds. After all things were considered, I figured that it was a reasonable thing to just let him drive in the spur of the moment.

Lucas swerved into fast-moving traffic and flipped the car into a ditch.

He died minutes later.

Sophi was the only one who was able-bodied to call an ambulance. She dragged Owen out of the car, who, at the time, was unconscious. She shook him, gave him CPR, and found every pressure point she could, but he wouldn’t wake up. His heart was beating, his lungs were moving, but she couldn’t break him from his sleep.

The ambulance came. They took Sophi, Owen, and Lucas to the nearest hospital.

Minutes later, me, my husband, my daughter, and my son entered the waiting room. Sophi was in a trance, probably recalling everything that had happened moments ago.

The minute she saw us, she burst into tears. I rushed over to comfort her, and she spilled the story. I called Lucas’ parents, telling them everything that went down.

It was awful.

They were crying over the phone, asking if Owen and Sophi were okay, even though it was their son that died.

Little did I know that Owen would be next.

They ended up not coming to the hospital, which was fine by me. I didn’t need any more crying people in the waiting room.

After that, everything went down all at once. The nurse told us he’d passed away, Sophi lost control of her emotions, the entire family was huddled in a giant, sloppy, wet huddle, and everything turned gray.

The world was no longer bright and colorful. Everything that was once yellow was now light gray. The happiness I once felt when I had all three of my children with me was now shadowed from the veil of my dead son.

It will affect me, my daughter, my son, and my husband forever.

It will impact Sophi.

It will impact my parents, my husband’s parents, Owen’s aunts, uncles, and cousins.

But he’s in a better place. 

We have to believe.