0
SPEAKER_02
I remember going into school that Monday.
0
SPEAKER_02
It also was homecoming week.
0
SPEAKER_02
So it was spirit week.
0
SPEAKER_02
And there was this really weird juxtaposition of people who didn t know Alicia, didn t know what was going on and were dressed for, I think it was tacky day or something.
0
SPEAKER_02
And they were all dressed up.
0
SPEAKER_02
It was just odd.
0
SPEAKER_02
Like it was a somber mood of here are all these people who are really happy and here are all these people who are clearly struggling.
0
SPEAKER_02
And the people who are really happy, like, well, why is everybody not dressed up?
0
SPEAKER_02
I thought this was going to be like all the past years.
0
SPEAKER_02
And so I think that whole week was just
0
SPEAKER_01
I think I realized it would be totally dishonest to do this very grief-stricken, sappy piece on Alicia as if that s the effect that her death has had on me.
0
SPEAKER_01
Because it s not.
0
SPEAKER_01
Alicia s death is what I look back at as the turning point of when I became alive.
0
SPEAKER_01
Alicia was an artist.
0
SPEAKER_01
She was prolific.
0
SPEAKER_01
She was making art nonstop.
0
SPEAKER_01
Her parents  house is full of her art.
0
SPEAKER_01
I have pieces of her art.
0
SPEAKER_01
Her parents have an apartment in Paris just full from ceiling to wall to wall of Alicia s art.
0
SPEAKER_01
She left an imprint on this world and she left one on my mind.
0
SPEAKER_01
I became an artist, which was not the plan.
0
SPEAKER_01
I heard people teach teenagers how to drive when they re 15 and 16 because they re not afraid of dying yet.
0
SPEAKER_01
You have to learn to drive a car before you learn to fear death.
0
SPEAKER_01
When people try to learn when they re 25, 26, it s too late.
0
SPEAKER_01
They have car anxiety.
0
SPEAKER_01
They have death anxiety.
0
SPEAKER_01
What I m saying is Alicia died before fear grew into a point of view.
0
SPEAKER_01
And so I want to make sure that as we conclude this show, that we do it in a way that would resonate with her.
0
SPEAKER_01
She wasn t a somber person.
0
SPEAKER_01
She was alive.
0
SPEAKER_01
She was alive until a split second when she was dead.
0
SPEAKER_01
That s not how it goes for most of us.
0
SPEAKER_01
I think Laleh probably has an even more acute point of view on who she was an artist because she was literally sitting right next to her in those art classes.
0
SPEAKER_00
I remember a lot of the things that she worked on.
0
SPEAKER_00
I remember I did the alphabet and it was a nature theme that I did.
0
SPEAKER_00
And she did the alphabet, but she did it with hands and feet.
0
SPEAKER_00
And it was unbelievable.
0
SPEAKER_00
I was like, is she tracing over a Michelangelo here?
0
SPEAKER_00
I don t understand how she can do this as well.
0
SPEAKER_00
And it s something I remember so vividly, this specific project that we worked on.
0
SPEAKER_01
The hands and feet thing definitely resonates.
0
SPEAKER_01
When I was at her parents  house, they had a bunch of her stuff and it was like all hands and feet.
0
SPEAKER_00
Oh, was it?
0
SPEAKER_01
A lot of it was, yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
They brought it up.
0
SPEAKER_01
They were like, I don t know what it was about this hands and feet thing.
0
SPEAKER_01
But I m interested in, both of you were really artistic and prolific artists as kids.
0
SPEAKER_01
What do you think makes a kid find joy or passion in art?
0
SPEAKER_00
I think the most important thing in that question is I would consider Alicia a true artist, whereas I think I m artistic.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s what I realized and maybe where some of the jealousy came from was when I saw someone as talented as that, I could be good at things, but there s a difference when she is saying,
0
SPEAKER_00
after class and all she s doing is examining the expression in her face.
0
SPEAKER_00
We had to do a lot of self-portraits and she would sit there with the mirror and we both took art so seriously, but she would just sit in the mirror and she would feel her face.
0
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t just looking and drawing the lines and the expressions.
0
SPEAKER_00
She would feel it and that would translate in the work.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s the difference because I m like, what s the assignment?
0
SPEAKER_00
Oh, a self-portrait.
0
SPEAKER_00
And then you do it.
0
SPEAKER_00
And that was the difference between her and really everyone else in our class.
0
SPEAKER_00
Everyone was pretty good, but she was just excellent.
0
SPEAKER_00
She was the kind of person that could make a life and career out of it because there was a love and a passion.
0
SPEAKER_01
My mom has known that I have been a serious person since I was very little.
0
SPEAKER_01
In our conversations, I wasn t like a kid who was just like, okay, we pray to God at night and that s it.
0
SPEAKER_01
I was thinking about God nonstop.
0
SPEAKER_01
My parents had to answer questions that in some ways there are no answers to.
0
SPEAKER_01
I used to lay at night by myself in my room.
0
SPEAKER_01
Okay, I know there s God, I know there s heaven, there s space, there s stars, there s the galaxy.
0
SPEAKER_01
What s outside of all of that?
0
SPEAKER_01
This is me as like an eight-year-old starting to write about this kind of stuff.
0
SPEAKER_01
And frankly, talking to my friend Alicia about a lot of this stuff, because that s how she would think.
0
SPEAKER_01
Whereas I would think about those things and it would make me frustrated because there were no answers.
0
SPEAKER_01
I think she would see those same galactic questions with this soft, curious, delightful wonder that could lead her to artistry.
0
SPEAKER_01
That can make for a very serious child.
0
SPEAKER_03
I remember one time we were reading a book about black cowboys.
0
SPEAKER_03
You were like five.
0
SPEAKER_03
I was in your room reading it to you as a bedtime story.
0
SPEAKER_03
It was a beautiful hardback book I had bought.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I thought, wow, this is gonna be about black cowboys and it s gonna be really neat, beautifully illustrated.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I got to the part where the cowboys were battling the Indians, Native Americans, but I think in the book they called them Indians.
0
SPEAKER_03
And you said something like,
0
SPEAKER_03
that wasn t right, and I don t want to hear about it anymore.
0
SPEAKER_03
I don t want to read this book anymore.
0
SPEAKER_03
And you just turned over and went to sleep.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I just closed that book up.
0
SPEAKER_03
And we never took it out again.
0
SPEAKER_03
So the point is, as you got older, you wanted the real story.
0
SPEAKER_03
I don t want to hear that fluff about cowboys and, quote, Indians, so to speak.
0
SPEAKER_03
That s not right.
0
SPEAKER_03
And that s always been kind of how you were, but you have always used your friends, not use them, but cherish them in a way that helps be a buffer for you overall and helps you, you know, see how the world is.
0
SPEAKER_01
I was a kid always searching for that feeling of like, I was over Disney movies.
0
SPEAKER_01
Ah, not all Disney movies.
0
SPEAKER_01
I loved the Lion King.
0
SPEAKER_01
Dad dies.
0
SPEAKER_01
That s some real shit.
0
SPEAKER_01
I m in.
0
SPEAKER_01
But certain cartoons just weren t for me.
0
SPEAKER_01
Cause it just like, ah, it s not real enough.
0
SPEAKER_01
I did and still do want the real story.
0
SPEAKER_01
I don t want just pieces of this in here.
0
SPEAKER_01
I want to know actually what happened in that car.
0
SPEAKER_01
So I m going to read the Washington Post report of the accident.
0
SPEAKER_01
A 16-year-old junior at James Blake High School in Silver Spring was killed Friday night when the driver of the car, in which he was a passenger, lost control and hit a telephone pole.
0
SPEAKER_01
Alicia Maria Betancourt of the 14700 block of Silverstone Drive was pronounced dead at the scene after the Volkswagen Jetta driven by the driver, 16, spun out of control on Norwood Road, north of Norbeck Road.
0
SPEAKER_01
The driver was also a student at James Blake.
0
SPEAKER_01
He was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, where he was in stable but critical condition.
0
SPEAKER_01
A preliminary police investigation indicated that no other vehicles were involved and that speed may have been a factor.
0
SPEAKER_01
The car slipped onto the right shoulder of the two-lane road and the driver tried to pull it back onto the road and overcompensated.
0
SPEAKER_01
sending the Jetta into a spin and into the pole on an embankment.
0
SPEAKER_01
Betancourt was wearing a seatbelt and shoulder harness, an airbag deployed, but it was not enough to soften the direct impact on the passenger side.
0
SPEAKER_01
I have imagined that moment so many times because this was a closed casket funeral, so I didn t get to see Alicia.
0
SPEAKER_01
But I ve imagined what she looked like.
0
SPEAKER_01
I ve imagined how she looked right before it.
0
SPEAKER_01
Did she scream?
0
SPEAKER_01
Was she at peace?
0
SPEAKER_01
She always had this balance about her.
0
SPEAKER_01
Did she have it in that moment?
0
SPEAKER_01
Did the light just go out without her even having a moment to react to what was happening?
0
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I wish Alicia could take this moment to tell us.
0
SPEAKER_01
But I also want to hear from the driver on this.
0
SPEAKER_01
And so I have to be real right now.
0
SPEAKER_01
Alicia deserves her say in this project, but so does the driver.
0
SPEAKER_01
And it s for that same reason that I have to be real about what s going on as I try to get the driver to come on this show.
0
SPEAKER_01
And his reply is this.
0
SPEAKER_01
Hello, Chad.
0
SPEAKER_01
I appreciate you reaching out and wanting to include me in your project.
0
SPEAKER_01
However, I will have to respectfully decline.
0
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
0
SPEAKER_01
He followed up about an hour later after sending me that text message and texted, were you close with Alicia?
0
SPEAKER_01
That question vexed me.
0
SPEAKER_01
It hurt me.
0
SPEAKER_01
It deflated me.
0
SPEAKER_01
It exploded my entire point of view on what I m doing here, which is an entire photo mosaic collage portrait of what it was like to lose this person from my life.
0
SPEAKER_01
And then the last person who ever spent time with her doesn t even know that we were close.
0
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it made me question if we were close.
0
SPEAKER_01
She told me about him, but I guess she didn t tell him about me.
0
SPEAKER_01
I replied to him, thanks for the quick reply with an exclamation point.
0
SPEAKER_01
I m doing this whole like very peppy voice about this thing and I m wincing at it.
0
SPEAKER_01
I said, yeah, Alicia and I were close.
0
SPEAKER_01
I m still pretty
1
SPEAKER_01
close with her family, hoping to really highlight the good in her with this project and hopefully bring reflection and closure for some people.
1
SPEAKER_01
Her parents are participating as well.
1
SPEAKER_01
He said, I m really, really sorry for your loss, Chad.
1
SPEAKER_01
Wish you the best.
1
SPEAKER_01
I thanked him.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then a month later, he texted me again, but it was a wrong number, which was kind of funny.
1
SPEAKER_01
He meant to text somebody else, I guess, named Chad.
1
SPEAKER_01
But when I read his text, I m really sorry for your loss, I had to think, this guy, he has probably had to send that same text a hundred billion times.
1
SPEAKER_01
He s probably had to learn
1
SPEAKER_01
how to not burden himself with the guilt of this thing.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, if I feel guilt as the person who was just like, man, I wish I would have asked her to go get ice cream so this didn t happen to her.
1
SPEAKER_01
Imagine being the person that drove the car.
1
SPEAKER_01
And even still, it feels kind of like a big airball.
1
SPEAKER_01
We didn t really connect here.
1
SPEAKER_01
This text exchange doesn t reveal anything to me about him or him about me.
1
SPEAKER_01
It just feels like another whiff.
1
SPEAKER_01
I still just feel like I don t know this person.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I m left to wonder, what does it mean that he didn t even know we were close?
1
SPEAKER_01
This is like one step below an obsession for me, I would say.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, because this was when it all felt real.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it s still, I m not normal.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m not easygoing, as easygoing as I was before that.
1
SPEAKER_01
And certainly, and people will remark on, they ll say, you re kind of serious.
1
SPEAKER_01
I can be gregarious.
1
SPEAKER_01
I can have fun.
1
SPEAKER_01
I can do all that stuff.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I think it really came from this event.
1
SPEAKER_01
I think it really came from this big question mark, this big, what the heck?
1
SPEAKER_00
Why did it have to happen?
1
SPEAKER_01
And why to this person?
1
SPEAKER_00
is probably one of the most difficult ones.
1
SPEAKER_00
Not only learn to live with, but to live life after the loss of a child, live it as joyfully as you can.
1
SPEAKER_00
So when Alicia passed,
1
SPEAKER_00
I was a total mess and I lived under a fog, under a black cloud.
1
SPEAKER_00
For me it was like inhabiting a body that was not really my own.
1
SPEAKER_00
I was sort of going through the motions.
1
SPEAKER_00
but not knowing what I was doing.
1
SPEAKER_00
As you may remember, one of the things that I did in order to understand what had happened was to interview her friends, including you.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I didn t know what was going to come out of these interviews until I realized that all her friends
1
SPEAKER_00
didn t know where to turn to.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it became a book to help other grieving kids know the ways that other teens grieve.
1
SPEAKER_00
Those interviews had a very healing effect, not only for the friends that sat with me, but also for me, because I learned about her through you.
1
SPEAKER_00
That was my way of understanding what had happened
1
SPEAKER_01
She gathered those interviews and put them in a book that she titled Alicia After Image.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m holding the book right now, and I got to say the thing, which is I didn t bring it to record today.
1
SPEAKER_01
I forgot it.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I can t avoid facing the truth, which is
1
SPEAKER_01
I have had this book since Alicia s mom wrote it, and I haven t read it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Each chapter is named after one of Alicia s friends from back then.
1
SPEAKER_01
I read my chapter, I think, but I can t even remember what s in it.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I know I didn t read the book.
1
SPEAKER_01
And this book has stayed with me.
1
SPEAKER_01
I moved three times in college.
1
SPEAKER_01
I moved to California.
1
SPEAKER_01
I moved to New York.
1
SPEAKER_01
I moved to London, back to New York.
1
SPEAKER_01
I moved to Berlin, back to New York again, and then I moved seven more times in New York.
1
SPEAKER_01
And this book has survived every move that I ve made over the last 15 years.
1
SPEAKER_01
And yet I haven t read it.
1
SPEAKER_01
I ve always told people my chapter is the last one in the book before her mom s chapter, which ends it.
1
SPEAKER_01
But there s a chapter between mine and her mom s chapter in the book.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that chapter is titled The Driver.
1
SPEAKER_01
I must have known that at some point.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I think that probably really scared me away.
1
SPEAKER_01
from reading this thing.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I have it now, even though I tried to leave it at home today for this recording.
1
SPEAKER_01
I guess there s no other way to get into this but to just rip the Band-Aid.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m going to the driver s chapter.
1
SPEAKER_01
It says Alicia was the girl he liked since the very first time he d noticed her at the HF Festival the summer before his senior year.
1
SPEAKER_01
A pretty girl with a glistening smile.
1
SPEAKER_01
She was crowd surfing in a bathing suit top and pants.
1
SPEAKER_01
That was the first time he had talked to her.
1
SPEAKER_01
Already out the gate, I m like, this is a side of Alicia I had no access to.
1
SPEAKER_01
Alicia crowd surfing, that s crazy to me.
1
SPEAKER_01
Off the top, this guy had a different point of view of her than I did.
1
SPEAKER_01
He says that they connected on music.
1
SPEAKER_01
He says that one day they were talking about music and he asked Alicia to come out to his car to listen to this CD it just bought.
1
SPEAKER_01
The latest recording by Coheed and Cambria.
1
SPEAKER_01
I have no idea what those are.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know what those are?
1
SPEAKER_01
I thought it was two different bands.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s a rock band, Coheed and Cambria.
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh my gosh, Alicia scampered across the parking lot.
1
SPEAKER_01
Is this your new car?
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, he opened the door of the Jetta and Alicia climbed in.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m paying for it.
1
SPEAKER_01
I put in 3,000 of the $8,000 my dad paid my cousin for it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Really?
1
SPEAKER_01
Where d you get the money?
1
SPEAKER_01
Alicia asked.
1
SPEAKER_01
The driver rested his hand on the stick shift.
1
SPEAKER_01
I ve been working at this sign shop.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s the best paying job I ve ever had.
1
SPEAKER_01
He was getting paid $9 an hour.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s funny, as I read this, I can see him through my teenage eyes.
1
SPEAKER_01
He was like a grownup.
1
SPEAKER_01
This is weird.
1
SPEAKER_01
I feel wistful.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t know Alicia like this at all.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I think back at it, we definitely didn t connect on music.
1
SPEAKER_01
Connecting with someone on music is like a whole other dimension of knowing them.
1
SPEAKER_01
This is an interview that Alicia s mom did with the driver.
1
SPEAKER_01
This is what he is saying happened.
1
SPEAKER_01
It says, when he came to pick up Alicia for the date on that night, it says Alicia s mother leaned in the doorway and glanced at his car.
1
SPEAKER_01
Are you a good driver?
1
SPEAKER_01
She asked.
1
SPEAKER_01
I can so see Lulu asking this person this question.
1
SPEAKER_01
He says, I think so.
1
SPEAKER_01
The driver replied.
1
SPEAKER_01
says he couldn t believe he was finally going out with her.
1
SPEAKER_01
He was gonna play In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth 3, the CD she had liked in the parking lot.
1
SPEAKER_01
They arrived in time for the last show at The Only, The Only Theater, that is.
1
SPEAKER_01
Toward the end of the movie, the driver asked Alicia if she had a curfew.
1
SPEAKER_01
She told him it was 11.30.
1
SPEAKER_01
He checked his watch.
1
SPEAKER_01
It was past 11.
1
SPEAKER_01
He asked if she wanted to leave.
1
SPEAKER_01
No, let s stay until the end.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s okay if I m just a little late,  Alicia said.
1
SPEAKER_01
They came out of the theater to a still night.
1
SPEAKER_01
A three-quarter moon shone among the clouds.
1
SPEAKER_01
Alicia s silver bracelets jangled as she talked on the walk across the parking lot.
1
SPEAKER_01
After she got into the car, the driver slid into his seat beside her.
1
SPEAKER_01
He grinned, wondering what would happen at her front door when they arrived at her house.
1
SPEAKER_01
The lot was nearly empty as he drove out of the only shopping center.
1
SPEAKER_01
Music blared from the CD player filling the quiet evening.
1
SPEAKER_01
He glanced at Alicia.
1
SPEAKER_01
She looked so happy.
1
SPEAKER_01
Then he turned on the Spartan Road.
1
SPEAKER_01
That was the last thing he remembered doing that night, even though his mind constantly tried to recover lost details.
1
SPEAKER_01
Three days later, the driver woke up in a hospital bed.
1
SPEAKER_01
His father was by his side.
1
SPEAKER_01
Tubes of all sizes were going in and out of his body.
1
SPEAKER_01
His mind was numb.
1
SPEAKER_01
It took a lot of effort to ask what had happened.
1
SPEAKER_01
His dad said he had been in an accident.
1
SPEAKER_01
He had crashed the car.
1
SPEAKER_01
For the past three days, he had been in a coma.
1
SPEAKER_01
He had broken the T11 vertebrae in his spine and was lucky he wasn t paralyzed.
1
SPEAKER_01
He would have to wear a brace for a while.
1
SPEAKER_01
Did he remember anything his father wanted to know?
1
SPEAKER_01
No, he didn t.
1
SPEAKER_01
Nothing.
1
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely nothing.
1
SPEAKER_01
The driver left the shock trauma center and was transferred to a rehab facility.
1
SPEAKER_01
One afternoon, he woke up feeling groggy.
1
SPEAKER_01
His father and a bunch of hospital people, including a psychiatrist, were standing by his bed.
1
SPEAKER_01
His dad spoke softly.
1
SPEAKER_01
Do you remember the girl in the car with you?
1
SPEAKER_01
He asked.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, Alicia.
1
SPEAKER_01
The driver frowned, puzzled.
1
SPEAKER_01
She died in the crash.
1
SPEAKER_01
What?
1
SPEAKER_01
The driver s eyes popped open.
1
SPEAKER_01
No, it s not true.
1
SPEAKER_01
I drove her home.
1
SPEAKER_01
His dad started to explain how that wasn t the case.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I walked her to the front door, the driver insisted.
1
SPEAKER_01
She gave me a hug goodnight.
1
SPEAKER_01
She did, I m sure.
1
SPEAKER_01
Oof, the psychiatrist interrupted to say that the driver s mind was playing tricks on him.
1
SPEAKER_01
But the driver remembered the warmth of Alicia s hug.
1
SPEAKER_01
He remembered her glistening smile.
1
SPEAKER_01
He remembered delivering her home safely and then driving away.
1
SPEAKER_01
How could he have imagined all that?
1
SPEAKER_01
The time came when the driver began to think of these memories as a dream.
1
SPEAKER_01
They couldn t be anything else.
1
SPEAKER_01
Overwhelmed by the facts, he started living in a fog.
1
SPEAKER_01
Couldn t focus on the simplest tasks.
1
SPEAKER_01
Things that had mattered before didn t matter anymore.
1
SPEAKER_01
Every time he thought about that night, he felt himself sink into a dark bottomless hole, all alone.
1
SPEAKER_01
His stomach turned at the thought of going back to school.
1
SPEAKER_01
He heard the rumor that some of the boys were going to jump him when he returned.
1
SPEAKER_01
Oof.
1
SPEAKER_01
Jesus, man.
1
SPEAKER_01
Still, he went back to Blake.
1
SPEAKER_01
He wanted to finish high school where he had started.
2
SPEAKER_00
but he didn t want to talk to anyone about what had happened.
2
SPEAKER_00
He was anxious about what people would think of him.
2
SPEAKER_00
He dreaded what they would say.
2
SPEAKER_00
These fears were what kept the driver from talking to Amanda and Matt for the rest of the fall semester.
2
SPEAKER_00
Amanda, there it is.
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Even though he sat right behind her, he was never able to utter a word.
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What could he say anyway?
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He knew she had been Alicia s friend.
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He thought Amanda was mad at him.
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If he said something, she might pour out all her hatred toward him.
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and she would be right to hate him.
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Alicia had died because of him.
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It had been his fault.
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So he kept silent, enveloped by the fog, his mind elsewhere, daydreaming.
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The worst class was digital arts.
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He stared at the door the entire time, desperately wishing for Alicia to walk through it and end the nightmare.
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School days became endless.
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He walked the crowded halls alone.
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He saw other kids staring at him and talking among themselves.
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At times, someone would ask, are you okay?
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But what was the person truly thinking?
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He didn t want people feeling sorry for him.
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He didn t like people knowing his name.
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He didn t want to be noticed at all.
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He wanted to be the kid he had been before that night, the quiet one in the back.
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He liked being that kid, but that kid was gone.
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Shortly after the accident, drove him to the crash site.
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His cousin pulled over by the telephone pole, but the driver couldn t get out of the car.
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He clenched his jaw, frozen in place.
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Couldn t make himself open the car door.
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Later, he had no memory of what the crash site looked like then.
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Just a blank, like so many things that had happened after the accident, impossible to remember.
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suggested to the driver that he keep a journal of his thoughts.
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For many months he did.
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He wrote so much and so often that he could not recall exactly when he started the letter of apology to Alicia s parents.
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Right after he had come out of rehab, the driver wanted to pay Alicia s parents a visit to tell them how sorry he was.
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He wanted to apologize.
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His dad and told him to wait, to get better first, to let things settle down.
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So he wrote his letter.
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It took him a long time to compose his thoughts and feelings into words.
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Mailing the letter gave him a small measure of relief.
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This is what he wrote.
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I am responsible for the pain you felt when you first heard the news of your daughter s passing and I am responsible for the pain you feel now and the void in your lives.
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I go over in my head a hundred times a day since I was first told the news of what had happened, how I could possibly tell you I am sorry.
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I am not asking for your forgiveness, just know that I am deeply and humbly sorry.
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If you would like to talk, contact me.
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That was his account.
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His book was published in 2008, and I haven t been able to get him to sit down with us to talk about how these feelings that I just read have fermented or evolved over the last 15 years.
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And I ve avoided reading that chapter.
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I ve avoided reading this book.
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I think on some level I got possessive of my memories of Alicia and I didn t want them changed.
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I m a person who will hide a book from friends until I m done with it because I don t want anybody else s point of view to mess with my experience.
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I think that s what I ve done with Alicia s life to this point.
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You know, it s funny, I was gonna end this episode by saying I don t think that closure is coming.
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And having read that, I feel like closure is coming.
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And I don t think I wanted it.
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And I think for the first time, I can see the driver.
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He s a full person now.
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He has feelings.
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This broke him.
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And now I wanna talk to that dude more than ever.
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What I want to tell him is, I m sorry.
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I m sorry that he had to experience that.
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I want to tell him it s not his fault, but I don t think it would matter.
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I think that the only person who he needs to hear tell him that is not here.
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Let me tell you a little bit about the visits.
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because we make a distinction.
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You have dreams, and dreams usually are having to do with a memory of an event.
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Usually the person is a certain age, and there s certain things that s taking place, and then there s a visit.
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The way I describe a visit, and I very vividly recall all of Alicia s visits, there is an actual interaction, there s a conversation.
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And not only is there a conversation in which you are receiving information and giving information, but there is also contact.
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You physically touch the other person.
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And when that occurs,
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there is a religious term, which is ecstasy, euphoria, because you are filled with pure, joyful energy.
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And you usually wake up crying tears of joy.
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That, to me, is about as close to the most pure, wonderful human experience anyone will ever have.
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So I remember the first time it happened, Alicia hugged me, and I woke up crying.
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I mean, it was just so marvelous.
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And thereafter, we ve had a series.
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I ve had a series of them.
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And we joke around.
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We say, I get them because I m the needy one.
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Lulu had her visit.
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Yeah, I had this amazing visit.
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And then she stopped.
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She said, Mom, you re OK.
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Now she visits him only.
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That s the needy one.
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But it was something that I will never, ever experience.
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And I ve been present in the birth of both my daughters.
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And yeah, I can tell you that s incredible, holding the baby and being the three of us together, but like that, nothing.
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It goes back to the dream that was not a dream that was evasive for me.
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The first two weeks after Alicia s passing was very difficult.
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It was such a shock.
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I was living in a body, but going through the motions, but it wasn t really me.
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Then I had this dream.
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And in this dream, it was a beautiful day, afternoon, golden lights.
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And there were cherry trees, like the one I have in front of our house, both in full blossom.
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There were several of these trees, both in fall
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And in spring, the four of us were running, the four, Arturo and I, Veronica.
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I could see Arturo, myself, and Veronica running around, playing.
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And I could sense Alicia, but I could not see her.
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And I was definitely positively certain that she was there.
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So I woke up with the...
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conviction that Alicia still was and I will say still is.
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I went out that door into my garden for the first time after her passing and I began to see the plants and I knew Alicia still is.
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And it was like Alicia had told me, mama, estoy bien.
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And that was my cue to do whatever I needed to do to bring healing into this home because we were broken.
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It s one of the unexplainable contradictions of life.
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How can someone who is gone feel so remarkably present?
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I ve lost people since Alicia.
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I ve lost family members.
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I ve lost friends.
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And yet her spirit still remains present.
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We have uncovered this whole palette of colors and visits and memories of what people experienced after losing this person that we all cared about.
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I can t help but contrast that to the very one-note, one-shade feeling and point of view that I have had about Kanisha s death.
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When I think about this multi-dimensional kaleidoscope of feelings that this community had to Alicia over here, over there, there s a whole other community of people who have that same point of view on Kanisha.
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Look, here s the thing.
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For all intents and purposes, Alicia was a white-presenting Puerto Rican girl.
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And so I ve always suspected that the world that we live in and the community that we come from treated her death with special care and walks and tears and legislation changes and all kinds of shit.
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And I also saw with my eyes, it very much felt like Kenesha s death was treated differently than that.
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You ve heard Kenesha already on this show described as a girl who had sexy bitch tattooed across her chest and that paints each person s point of view a certain way about how they think about this
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girl and how she died and what that means.
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And, you know, fuck it.
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Some people on some level, they think subconsciously, well, that s what happens to girls like that.
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But girls like Alicia, that s a tragedy.
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I wasn t a part of Kenesha s community, but I want to know what happened over there.
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And that s what Deborah Monk, principal of her high school, who had to go visit her family in the devastation after Kenesha died.
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I went over to Kanisha s house to visit with her family.
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Wow.
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I ll never forget that.
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That s the next day, the very next day.
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Very next day.
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They lived in this little house in Rockville, and I had never met them before.
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And I had flowers, and I just knocked on the door and told them who I was.
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And they just, it s emotional to even tell you, they just hugged me.
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I mean, I didn t know what kind of a reception I would get.
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They were so devastated.
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And I think it meant a lot to them to just have somebody come and say, this is awful.
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We re so sorry.
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They were not hysterical.
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They weren t like, oh, we ve got to get that girl.
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She s got to go to jail or whatever.
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They were just extremely sad.
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They had great hopes for Kenesha.
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And I think especially since we had just recently put her in honors classes,
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I think they thought she was going to make something of her life.
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That right there is very hard to hear.
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Kenesha s family was excited.
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They were hopeful.
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I don t have kids.
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I have nephews.
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I love kids.
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I love my friends  kids.
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I just see the kids playing by the high school and the middle school in my neighborhood in Queens.
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They just carry an energy, and it feels like it s all potential.
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In these two cases, Kenesha s and Alicia s, it is tempting to feel like they die
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and the potential all dies with them.
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I am still trying to look at these two deaths and ascribe a meaning.
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I need beginning, middle, and ending.
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I need them to lead me to some resolution.
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If I can t get the answers from this person, then maybe the answers aren t out there.
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I am hoping that Alicia s mom, who has probably spent more time as a parent, as a human, as an artist, trying to derive meaning from what happened to her daughter, I have to ask her, what is the meaning of this?
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What is this for?
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Why?
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I actually really do think there are some people who are special, and I think she was special.
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I wonder, is it maybe 16 years was what she was supposed to have, and she didn t.
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Maybe that s why she was prolific as an artist, because maybe somewhere she had the wisdom that this would come to an end.
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All of the things that you ve said about her visiting.
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Just all these symbols and stuff.
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And it starts to become such a labyrinth to go through.
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But I really do go through it over and over and over again.
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And I guess maybe I m wondering, you two are certainly much closer to her than I was.
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I know you ve been doing the same.
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And I wonder, maybe you guys have figured it out.
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I don t know.
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I don t know that it s the why, but the what.
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What do you do with it?
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And perhaps for you, this shocking event that changed you,
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that made you begin your adult life at an earlier age than you were supposed to.
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It s what brought you to this podcast and who listens to this podcast and is helped by it.
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I don t know, Chad.
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I do believe that things are connected.
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We re all connected in this world, one way or another.
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And when you re confronted with something as the death of a best friend, it s about what you do with it.
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It s not about what happened to you.
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It s about what you do with what happened to you.
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And that s Rabbi Koshner, not my words.
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So maybe it s this podcast.
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I don t know.
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Maybe something else.
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But we re all connected.
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I think that why I keep spinning my head on this year is because this kind of feels like the year that life started.
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It feels like the year that I started.
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It feels like the year that I started being me.
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In seeing and talking to all of these people again about what became of their lives after this year,
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I realized that we are still connected.
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We re all still connected by this year when life began.
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And I m going to keep trying to get a hold of him so that we can get his voice.
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But I don t know.
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He said something that resonated with me, which is his mind filled in the gaps after he went unconscious.
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He thought he had memories of dropping her off at home, giving her a hug.
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He really believed that.
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And what I wonder in all of this project is how many of these gaps are we all filling in?
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with our imaginations, because we re not there anymore.
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How many of these gaps am I filling in about my friend just because how many things am I saying are so about her that I just, I want to be so.
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He probably wanted so bad for that to be true.
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And he had dropped her off and given her a hug.
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I can t help but wonder how much of that all of us are doing as we tell the story of who she was to us.
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In the final episode, our crazy basketball season comes to an unexpected ending.
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And even though I feel like I m ready to put this all to bed, Dax and Monica step in to help me try to figure out what I m supposed to do with everything I ve uncovered here.