I’m sure to most of you, it’s no surprise that I’m writing this post today. I have felt the need to mentally visit this every six months, to make sure that this small corner of the world still remembers her.  To make sure that all of my readers–some days a small audience, and other days much larger, remember that once upon a time there was a woman named Heather who was ripped from this Earth on a normal, Sunday morning.  Six months ago, I remembered her with these words.  Today, I remember her with these:

A google image  search on Heather Boyum will turn up a number of random images, these being a few of them:

She was beautiful. Ambitious. Educated and successful. She had a beautiful family. She had goals. She had direction. A few more nice pictures of Heather in the search results but the rest are tainted by images of crime–of manslaughter. Of a life that was not yet finished.  I would’ve loved to meet Heather. I’m friends with many of her family members on Facebook now–I’ve met some of them . . . had coffee with her mom, photographed her children, met a few more at the Iron Angel 5K.  You can tell she was well loved–she knew so many people. Had so many different circles of friends. She was an accomplished teacher at Fairport and probably touched more young lives than most people do, not to mention how many lives of future students she would’ve impacted.

Why is it that the wrong ones are always the ones that are the victims?

Two years later, the accident is more a blur than it is a vivid memory that I could play back to you in slow motion. After I testified last year, my brain knew that it could listen to my heart and start letting go of the tight grip I had on the memories. They began to fade. It’s been fourteen months since I had to sit on that witness stand for three hours–and fourteen months of healing has made some areas a little foggy.  I knew I needed to forget, but even as I sit here and type, I know I’ve only forgotten on the surface. I keep stopping after typing each of these sentences and I remember back to that day. Deep down, I haven’t forgotten as much as I thought I had. I guess I just try to repress the memories–shove them deep down in–so that they don’t replay in my mind daily like they used to.

During that first year after she passed away, every single day I drove by the accident site, the whole thing would play in my mind. Now, I drive by and comment on how pretty the flowers look. Or how I’m so glad someone took the time to mow around the memorial site.

But there are still dark areas for me.

I still curse at the street named Marcher often. I curse at it because it was the street that I decided to try to run down two years ago–a street I had never run to, or run on before. What made me decide to do it that day, I’m not sure. I had never ran on 250 before. I’m a timid runner. . . normally keeping to side streets or running on sidewalks when available. The early morning slow hours of a Sunday made me braver than I had been in the past. I never made it to Marchner that day.  Nor will I ever attempt to run to that street, or run on that street again. It’s been tainted.

I still hate motorcycles too. Sport bikes–not big, non-scary Harley Davidson type motorcycles.  Only the fast ones. And if they’re red? Forget it. Even if you’re the nicest person on the planet, and I see you riding down the street on a red motorcycle, I’m likely to harbor bad feelings toward you for the rest of my life. That and I will stay far, far away from you on the road, and also flinch anytime you accelerate.

I still am baffled by the EMT that was first to arrive on the scene. A pedestrian that had stopped by that point was trying to give Heather CPR and I was standing by with 911 on the line. I remember the EMT waltzing out of the ambulance with a sort of smirk on his face as he calmly walked back to get his box of equipment. I remember thinking to myself, am I imagining it or is he actually smiling. And then the man working on Heather said angrily, “Wipe that smirk off your face . . . someone is dying here.”. I wasn’t imagining it after all.  To this day, I often wonder about that–is that how EMTs cope when they arrive at a scene like that . . . a tight lipped greeting to those that are present to say we have arrived, I am sorry that you are in this situation, and that which can be mistaken for a smile?  Perhaps I was hoping for a little bit of urgency. Some running involved to show that he believed that every single second counted. I know I’m not imagining it–I know that everything seems slow motion when something like that happens, but I know he could’ve gone quicker than he did. I also know that truly, when it came down to it, his lack of urgency in the ten feet he had to walk wasn’t the matter of life and death for Heather, but I was just surprised by it, as I’m sure anyone else would’ve been, including the pedestrian next to me.

I still curse at these two faces below, whenever I see them pop up. Looking at those photos sort of makes me want to scream and punch them in the face all at the same time. I remember back to the day of the accident. I didn’t know how to handle myself. I had to stay at the accident site for over two hours waiting and waiting to give my disposition. I had to watch everything. Watch them take Heather’s body away. Watch Heather’s friend screaming and sobbing. Watch the two people who didn’t deserve to still be the ones walking to be alive still. Watch the examiners and the investigators and the firemen. And then I was expected to just go home like everything in the world was right? I remember just sobbing and sobbing on my bed. I remember taking a shower and then trying to go down and sit on the couch with the boys while James was reading a book and starting to sob all over again. I couldn’t handle real life. I couldn’t even talk to my mom about it, and literally didn’t call or talk to anyone but James for two full days. Our good friends took our boys overnight and we slept at a hotel. Being home, in real life, having to deal with real life things. . . it just wasn’t an option for me at that point. And so, I laid on a hotel bed. I obsessively watched the news, waiting to hear the name of the victim–because up until that point, nobody had told me. Waited to hear who’s purple phone I held onto so tightly after I found it lying on the ground next to her. And then when I learned who it was, I remember googling the daylights out of her name and learning about her life, her legacy and what she left behind. I remember seeing the faces of the two people below. And then I learned more and more about the story, and how the accident was not just an accident, but a crime. And those faces just mad me more and more furious every time that I saw them.