By 7:00 pm I was back at our house, but not before I had made calls to John’s sisters and brother and my parents.
John and his siblings had just lost their mom the summer before and were still grieving her loss. Like my conversations with the kids, as each one answered their phone it was as though the wind had been knocked out of me. Them, starting with a happy “hey Annie!” and me having to launch into the dreaded “I don’t know how to tell you this. It’s John. Big John.” There was no easy way to break the news, and no easy way to soften the blow. They knew the John that I knew, sometimes grumpy and sometimes belaboring a point until he was blue in the face, but loved his family immensely, would pop in unannounced to see his nieces and nephews in their sports roles, and was a friend and helper to just about anybody. He was the handy one in the family. As if a chorus for that night, I remember each one saying, “what do you mean?” And then each promised they would “be there as soon as possible.”
My parents were on their eight week “get out of the cold weather” retreat in Florida. Jenn, Charlie’s wife, broke the news to them and my sister, Karen (KK), and I followed up with a call to each. Mom and dad thought of John as a son, and the news hit them as such. Just as with his own family, John would stand firm and argue a point with them, but loved them and often helped with tasks around their house. It would be a long two days of memories and thinking about him as they were driving back to PA.
So now we waited. Waited for my children to get home so that I could wrap my arms around them, waited for John’s siblings to get here and explain the unexplainable and hash and rehash the question “why?” And I waited with very little hope for someone to wake me up from the unbearable nightmare that was playing out in my house.
John’s family arrived by about 7:30. My sister got to the house, as did some more friends and Monsignor Murphy from church. We gathered around the dining room table, a place of countless family gatherings, and prayed, asked for guidance, and spoke about the man that gave us such joy.
John's brother and sisters went home and my sister, sister-in-law, and a few close friends remained and waited with me for Maddie and Brendan to arrive. The first set of headlights through the window of the family room announced that Maddie and Charlie were home. Grief ridden, we all hugged and sobbed. Maddie and I huddled on the sofa, looking at each other occasionally, shaking our heads, tears streaming down our cheeks. The second set of lights would be Brendan, Jim and Ed. My head cocked to the side as I saw Brendan get out of the car and he walked toward me. "Oh buddy, I'm so sorry." And then hugs. Big hugs.
John and Gabbie were en route. It would be another 7 hours and then they would all be home.
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