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A Terrible Thing
By Stephanie Kemp
A Terrible Thing
By Stephanie Kemp
When I was 11 my friend was in a plane crash on her way to summer vacation.
“It crashed in the woods.”
“The pilot died.”
“She was with her sisters.”
That is all I overheard before the grown ups went into overdrive, making sure we all knew that “they would be ok,” but that my friend “would be gone for a while.”
I immediately began writing my friend a never ending letter with the weekly details of almost every single day, while also starting to save my allowance to buy her tiny stuffed animals. She loved animals and I thouht they would be able to keep her company while she got better in Cape Cod, wherever that was.
I kept writing and writing and putting the ever growing menagerie of animals in a sweater box from Parson’s that still had the tissue in it. My mom said she could send the package whenever it was ready. (She even said she would also make my friend cookies. She really wanted me to get my package in the mail.)
But the letter was impossible to finish because there was always so much more to say. Plus I had to make sure that all the things I told her didn’t make her (extra) sad because of all the things she was missing. I was also starting to worry that there could never be enough stuffed animals to make her feel better after something so scary and real.)
What was I thinking?
Maybe I should just get a regular card and not try so hard, I thought to myself (every day.) It was exhausting writing that letter, especially because I knew it needed to be perfect, after such a terrible thing. On top of this (and possibly even worse), I was also starting to feel guilty that I was keeping my mom from sending my friend cookies. Everyone loved my mom’s cookies. They were sort of famous.
In the time that I never sent the letter or the animals (or the card or the cookies), my friend, thankfully, kept getting better.
And the next summer, when she was healed enough to (finally) see all of the friends who supported her through that whole, terrible time, she invited everyone to Cape Cod (Massachusetts, I’d learned during the school year) to thank them.
Everyone except me.
No-one knew why I wasn’t invited except me and my friend, and our parents. (Or maybe they did, because no-one ever asked me why I wasn’t going with them.)
After that trip and once my friend came back to school, I was too ashamed to ever give her my letter or the animals, so I threw them all away and pretended everything was normal.
I wish I still had them.
I would give them to her now.
Especially because I have never told her (or anyone) this (part of the) story, and it has been over 46 years.
“It crashed in the woods.”
“The pilot died.”
“She was with her sisters.”
That is all I overheard before the grown ups went into overdrive, making sure we all knew that “they would be ok,” but that my friend “would be gone for a while.”
I immediately began writing my friend a never ending letter with the weekly details of almost every single day, while also starting to save my allowance to buy her tiny stuffed animals. She loved animals and I thouht they would be able to keep her company while she got better in Cape Cod, wherever that was.
I kept writing and writing and putting the ever growing menagerie of animals in a sweater box from Parson’s that still had the tissue in it. My mom said she could send the package whenever it was ready. (She even said she would also make my friend cookies. She really wanted me to get my package in the mail.)
But the letter was impossible to finish because there was always so much more to say. Plus I had to make sure that all the things I told her didn’t make her (extra) sad because of all the things she was missing. I was also starting to worry that there could never be enough stuffed animals to make her feel better after something so scary and real.)
What was I thinking?
Maybe I should just get a regular card and not try so hard, I thought to myself (every day.) It was exhausting writing that letter, especially because I knew it needed to be perfect, after such a terrible thing. On top of this (and possibly even worse), I was also starting to feel guilty that I was keeping my mom from sending my friend cookies. Everyone loved my mom’s cookies. They were sort of famous.
In the time that I never sent the letter or the animals (or the card or the cookies), my friend, thankfully, kept getting better.
And the next summer, when she was healed enough to (finally) see all of the friends who supported her through that whole, terrible time, she invited everyone to Cape Cod (Massachusetts, I’d learned during the school year) to thank them.
Everyone except me.
No-one knew why I wasn’t invited except me and my friend, and our parents. (Or maybe they did, because no-one ever asked me why I wasn’t going with them.)
After that trip and once my friend came back to school, I was too ashamed to ever give her my letter or the animals, so I threw them all away and pretended everything was normal.
I wish I still had them.
I would give them to her now.
Especially because I have never told her (or anyone) this (part of the) story, and it has been over 46 years.