The Road Ahead

It’s funny how quickly life can change.

Tuesday night was a normal one for me. Nate and I finished cleaning up after rehearsal and decided to make a Safeway run. Being Stage Manager and ASM meant long nights in Wood-Mar and snacks were needed to keep us going. In Safeway I was up to my usual antics: parading down the aisles with boxes of Capri-Suns and Cheese-It’s stacked so high in my arms you could only see from my eyes up. Nate and I debated the healthiness of Hot Pockets and he laughed as little 5’2 me struggled to keep my treasures from spilling out of my hands.

Then, as Nate was paying for his food, I got the news. My old voice teacher’s mother had passed away. She had been in the hospital since Saturday when she had been found unconscious. They’d been testing for brain activity all day and Angela had finally announced that Sandy was gone. I was crushed. Sandy was like family to me. She’d opened her home to me for six years as I took lessons with Angela and I thought of her like a surrogate Grandmother.

I couldn’t process what was happening. I remember Nate’s arm across my shoulder as he led me back to his car and his offering to buy me a milkshake before taking me home to Hobson. It was a sweet gesture, but I knew that I didn’t want to be at Hobson. I needed to keep myself distracted. I asked him to go somewhere. So we started to drive.

It was dark, and winding roads took us far outside Newberg. He handed me the auxiliary cord and told me to play anything. The first song was a Pentatonix cover. We both began singing along and soon enough, the tears I had been struggling to keep back were gone. I was laughing and singing and there was joy in my heart.

I felt bad, being so happy after Sandy had just passed away and her family was grieving. But I realized later that Sandy wouldn’t have wanted me to be sitting in my dorm room, sinking into a fit of depression. She would have wanted me to be doing exactly what I was doing: hanging out with my friend and having fun. Living my life without the weight of what was happening on my shoulders for just one night.

It reminded me of a movie: two friends driving anywhere with tunes bumpin’ and nothing but endless road stretched out in front of them. I would have moments of grief later, but I always go back to the memory of sitting in Nate’s car and realize that I couldn’t let death and sorrow take away what living was like.