Not writing this for sympathy. Just putting it out there so people can relate.
I live in Manchester, had one child. 24yrd lad. He,d left home and gone to work a live in London. Had a really good well paid job with a company car. He was very popular,had a million friends. Very outgoing personality.
One morning the police called and said we think you’re son has been In an accident. Can you come to the hospital and identity him. Even though he lived and worked in London he had crashed his car about 5 miles from my house at 2am. With all the evidence that the police obtained. Vehicle damage,phone records, the weather ECT . It was deemed he’d simply fallen asleep at the wheel. We were able to work out his movements over the coarse of the day via his phone and who he’d spoken to during the day. He had been awake for around 18 hours 9 of those hours were spent driving which were confirmed. The car had drifted into the curb on an unlit bend in the road on the moors. All the airbags had gone off . Unfortunately the car had rolled over and glided over the Armco safety barrier. Which ripped the roof off like a tin opener. When we got to the hospital. There wasn’t a mark on him. He looked so peaceful. However the Armco barrier had ripped the back of his head open.
To this day after speaking to everyone involved we have never got the answer as to why he was 5 miles from my house when he lived 200 an odd miles away. .
What happened next can only be described as hell. Within a day or two of his passing the neighbors started to avoid me like the plague. I called in work to drop a sick note off all my work colleagues darted out of the way or wouldn’t make eye contact with me or speak. Over the following weeks if my wife and I were our shopping people would point at us and talk. People we knew on bumping into each other in the supermarket would simply let go of their trolley turn round and scurry off. This went on for months. After the inquest all of our and my son’s friends disappeared never to return. I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. Would burst out crying at any given moment. I went to the doctors for sleeping pills . I would cry in my sleep. It was literally 8 months before someone I knew an old school friend stopped me in the street asked how I was and I literally broke down in the street as outside my immediate family this was the first friendly adult contact I’d had. I’m 6 years in now. I’ve made new friends. Don’t speak to anyone from my old life. The first 3 years were the hardest. I’m in a much better place now. I still have a terrible sleep pattern. I’ve sat downstairs in the small hours a million times. I miss him everyday. People say all the cliche,d sayings. Think of the good times… He wouldn’t want you being sad … What would he be doing now… I know they mean well but it’s normally people who haven’t lost a child that trot out such irrelevant phases. I suppose like every one else on this site the anniversaries are the worst , birthday, Xmas ECT. To anyone who is in the early throws of grief. You do feel like it’s never going to get better and that there is no pain like it. You get used to living with it. I’ve still never found out why he crashed were he did and I never will. But one day I will be able to ask him for myself
