The Little Spanish Girl Makes Me Cry

Yesterday I got to deliver a speech to 300 teenagers.

The speech was a letter to my dead son.

Killed by a drunk driver on his way home from school.

There really wasn't a drunk driver, nor is Taylor really dead. For now.

The occasion was a mock situation at Taylor's high-school where students were removed from their classrooms and sequestered in a hotel for 24 hours. The rest of the class was read an obituary and a tombstone for the dead student was placed in the quad. All of this done in a effort register in teenage minds what it might be like if one of their classmates was killed in a drunk driving accident.

The episode culminates in a two hour assembly where police give speeches, the dead students read letters to their surviving loved ones, and parents read letters they've written to their dead children.

Kind of sad.

A little fun.

But kind of sad.

Two weeks ago, I was tasked with writing this letter to Taylor, including his obituary, because Joann wasn't going to be able to really participate in it at all. Way too sad. And slightly demented.

I approached this assignment with a pretty sick level of joviality, because, honestly, what parent out there hasn't imagined killing their children?

Especially step children.

Cause frankly . . .

Sometimes . . .

We all want to shake the baby.

But fantasizing about killing your children is a far cry from imagining they're dead.

As I learned.

It was a hard piece to write. I may have even gone through several drafts, where usually I'm so clean. (chuckle chuckle)

So I dug down real deep and produced a piece I was proud of, if nothing for the fact that there's not a single mom who could read it and not cry. It was so tear jerky that I was asked to read the letter for the assembly.

Sure, I thought. What could be easier than to deliver a speech to a bunch of half baked teenagers and crying soccer moms? I won't be the least bit nervous or swayed by the proceedings. I'll deliver the speech cleanly, with vibrato and strength. It will be powerful and stoic.

As we walked into the auditorium, my wife and I, we were handed the schedule of speeches to come. I was told that I was going on after one of the dead children, and that I'd know which one because she's going to be reading her letter in spanish.

Cool, I thought.

And most of the assembly went as I figured. The lights were dimmed, the police officers showed pictures of collisions, one had a personal story of regret. A few parents read their letters, a few students read theirs, and then came the little latino girl.

She began her speech with her eyes glued to the podium. Her words were clear, precise and delivered from a place of strength. But then she looked out into the crowd of parents sitting on the right hand side of the audience and her voice began to falter.

Her tone rose an entire octave and though I could only pick out a few words from the speech,

amor, corazon, muerte,

love, heart, dead,

I felt the panic of her message as she desperately tried to convey her anguish that her parents would never see her again. It seemed to me a moment of intolerable courage as she read the last sentence and pulled her eyes away from the page to address the crowd once more in silence.

The audience took a collective breath, and wept.

And then it was my turn.

Which sucked, because I too was in the audience.

And the little spanish girl made me cry.

And I was going to have to deliver a speech in front of 300 teenagers with an incredibly uncool lump in my throat.

Thank goodness for all that actor training I received in my 20's because I was able to get through the whole thing without blubbering or flubbing my lines, but I wasn't exactly the Prince of Denmark either.

I was more or less like Keanu Reeves in "As you Like It".

"I'd rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace . . . whoa"

But even though the speech wasn't a crowning achievement in the performance art of my life, the letter was a nice piece of writing which follows below. It will be the end of this little blog, because I don't think it deserves my snarky commentary. But try to imagine it being delivered a man in full control of his faculties rather than the weeping sissy pants that spoke it in real life.

Here it is:

Dear Taylor,

Yesterday, the house was filled with the sound of your voice. The pop music escaping from your ear buds. The click of the keyboard as you furiously type, hit delete, and type again.

The sound of your voice escaping your vocal chords as the music,

that only you can hear,

swells.

The sound of your enormous feet, like cinder blocks, plodding across the wood floors.

Yesterday, there was a book left on the counter. There were note cards with tiny ineligible writing, splashed across the dining room table. A black retainer sitting in the center of the cards. And yesterday I was furious with you for leaving these things around for me to gather up and pile in you room.

Yesterday, your brother asked where you were.

And I could tell him.

Yesterday, I was bragging to my customers how proud I was to have a son who would graduate at the top of his class. He would be going on to college, to his doctorate, to take life in both hands and deliver unto the world, a man of extraordinary greatness.

A man who has battled demons the rest of us didn’t even know existed. A man who could still smile, still laugh, while the world was collapsing around him.

Yesterday, you had dreams. Yesterday you had nightmares. Yesterday there were a thousand possibilities of life. And yesterday, we stood proud, that whatever life had in store for you, you would meet it with an unsurmountable optimism and grace.

Yesterday, I couldn’t find my iPhone charger,

and I knew,

I just knew that you had borrowed it.

You must have brought it with you to school.

And I will never find it again.

Because today . . .

today . . .

You’re dead.

And the house is quiet.

And there are no books, retainers, note cards, ipods, noises of any sort that would allow me to believe,

that any minute now,

you will come walking through those doors.

Since for as long as I can remember, I have loved you. I have taught you, I have hurt you, I have complimented and harangued you.

I have seen you in weakness.

I have seen you in strength.

I have sheltered you and thrown you to the wolves.

All of it done, so that I may one day see, what this great man before me, has to accomplish in the world.

But you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And any dreams that I may have had for your life,

have been swept away.

Your brother lies on your bed now.

Breathing in the scent of you.

Hoping to god that Santa will bring his brother back for Christmas.

“But its only April.” I tell him.

“I can wait” he says.

“I can wait.”