Week 3 – Sir Dreamchaser

This week, we can explore a few related topics. Think back to the collision and the weeks and months right after it. Think about the help you did – or DID NOT – get… and where you got it or wanted to get it from. 

What was good – and what wasn’t? In a perfect world, what support should be there truckers who may go through this in the future?

I have tried to look at this Question in both biased and non biased formats and due to recent events I find that I am incapable of either. I have seen what I think is more that my share of Tragedy, Most of us have. I’ve lost count after I lost my middle child in 2012, the 4 years prior it was both my parents, older brother, both grandfathers on wife’s side, couple uncles. I was almost out of toes at that point with just family not to mention the vehicular fatalities that were before and after. I guess at some point you become cold, dead even, pardon the pun, to it. I found out a week ago that a young man that I have known since he was in diapers was with his wife out camping and celebrating their 2nd year anniversary. On their way home their car went over a 300 ft cliff killing his young bride and leaving him seriously injured. Needless to say I spent the next day or two doing whatever I could to get my butt home…and WOW! it hit, it hit hard.

We all have different outlets, we have used different methods of therapy, different forms, whether if be professional or self medicated. Hopefully, at some point, we all seek some sort of professional help to understand how to cope and channel what we’ve experienced, what we are Experiencing. Many of us “suffer in silence” because we don’t know who to turn to, where to go to be able to find someone to help us cope with what we witnessed, experienced, was a part of. I have talked about my experiences a little with professionals, I needed to get “me” under control and broke out the wire frame, still have to go in and build the full app if you know what I mean, a lot of stuff buried, blocked out that I don’t remember (probably for good reason) and a lot of crap I really wish I could forget. It really didn’t help being raised by parents that didn’t believe in “shrinks” and “touchy, feely”crap, tough it out…Be A Man about it…

It’s interesting though that many cultures prepare there youth at a young age to accept death as a reality, a part of life that eventually happens, Vikings, Japanese (older culture) are two off the top of my head without doing a massive amount of research. They did this so that it is not such a Traumatic event, Shock, Stress in their life and they can continue on with little impediment to their day to day whatever they did back then, all about productivity. Enough distraction…

I didn’t realize how hard the news of the death of this young mans wife would affect me, you know, the emotions; anger, pain, anguish, desperation, hopelessness, fear, depression. Sometimes hitting all at once, Like a Mack truck with a load of bricks and every single brick hits you one at a time over and over and over again…(good analogy huh). It made me start thinking that a national hotline would be good right about now as, well I am dealing with the news of a death in the family (sort of, he is basically my kid, his dad died a few years back) and it has possibly triggered a whole slew of emotions, flashbacks, sleep is, well sleep would be nice but seems un-achievable at this point. It would be nice to have someone to talk to, someone other than a family member that may not understand, someone other than my wife (sorry babe) who is half as frustrated as I am.

Now whether or not I would utilize a hotline is another question because, Here we go again, “I am a MAN, I am STRONG, FEELINGS ARE WEAK”. Laughing a little because here I’ve been crying off an on while trying to think of what to write this week, Big Tough Guy. Been crying a lot this last week (guess I am still human after all) as I think about this young man, his loss, HIS pain, GOD HIS PAIN…

A lot of truck stops have chapels and I wonder how hard it would be to set up council groups via network with them once a month?