Accidents

We have received the police report at last, 4 months after the accident. Why it took so long I have no idea as it doesn't really tell us anything we didn't already know, other than the witness statements. There was no information about the police investigation of how the horses got out and were loose on the road at night, resulting in the death of my son. 

We were told at the time of Bryn's death that there was no criminal case to pursue, that it was just an unfortunate accident, and that the owner of the horses was distraught. At the time I accepted this. I'm sure the horse owner didn't mean for this to happen. As time moves on I get more and more angry about it though. Sure, the horse owner didn't mean for it to happen, but it did. If their horses had been contained that night, instead of being on loose on the road, my son would still be alive. So why were the horses loose? 

Part of my job involves risk mitigation. You think about the negative things that could happen, and you take steps to avoid it happening. Oftentimes, risk mitigation is expensive, but it helps to prevent 'accidents'. I really want to know how the horses escaped. Was it through an open gate? If so, how did the gate get left open? Why wasn't there a second gate? If the horses had chewed through a fence, why wasn't the fence regularly inspected? Why wasn't there an outer fence? If you hit a cat or a dog that's loose on the road you will kill it, and you will be shocked, but you will most likely survive. You would probably spend less effort mitigating for the risk of a cat escaping than a dog. Less effort for a small dog than a larger dog. If you are going to keep horses next to a road you had better make damn sure those horses aren't going to escape onto the road because the potential consequences are obvious. 

The horse owner sold the horses right after my son was killed. She also sold the house she had built and moved away. She couldn't cope with living at the spot where her horse killed my son, so she moved away to start over. We don't have the luxury of moving away and starting over. Our son is dead, and moving to the other side of the world isn't going to change that. 

Bryn never did like horses.  

Signs of Recovery

I was told today that I seem to be "engaging more than I have been over the last few months since Bryn died" and that "perhaps I am starting to show signs of recovery".  I am obviously doing a very good job at deceiving people. Maybe I should have taken up acting.

The truth is, Bryn is always on my mind. Constantly. Every waking minute, and often when I sleep too. When I put my shoes on in the morning I see his runners and I think how his feet used to be in them. He loved those runners. I see the jacket hanging in the garage as I get my car out to go to work, and his toolbox on the bench. I think of his keyboard, that he used to make sing with wonderful music, now silent. His drum set sits in the basement, exactly as he left it, and I can still 'see' him there playing them with his shirt off as he always used to do. I pass the site of the accident, the spot where he died, every day on the way into work. We placed a cross there, with his name on it, a reminder to the world that we lost our youngest son there.

I fight not to cry at random moments throughout the day, for no apparent reason, other than my son is dead of course. He is an emptiness that cannot be filled. A never ending heart ache that no pills can cure. I am detached from reality. How can this possibly be real that my son is dead and I will never see him again, or hear his voice again, ever? It has to be a nightmare that I will surely wake from soon. I frequently wonder about my sanity and how I just want to stop, and scream, and make it all go away. It is relentless. I have even contemplated, on the drive home from work, how easy it would be to force the nightmare to end.

Signs of recovery? It's never ending torture.