My brother’s name was Jack Aaron S----k but we called him Aaron. He was born on September 1, 1986 when I was four years old. We grew up in a split home with lots of drama on both sides. My dad hated my mom and constantly told Aaron that he wasn’t sure he was his child.
In the winter of 2011/2012 my brother was supposed to go visit my dad, but couldn’t because he had to fix his brakes. My brother called my dad to tell him, and dad was furious. Aaron said “I’m sorry Dad, I’m not retired like you, I have work to do.” And my dad took this to mean that Aaron was calling him lazy. He got extremely angry and every time I talked to him from then on out he’d say awful things about Aaron. He said he wanted to get “FUCK YOU JAS” tattooed on his arm so when he was laying in his casket Aaron would see it and be upset. He said just terrible things about Aaron for about nine months. Told me that Aaron was a loser, he never wanted to see him again, that Aaron was never his son, basically poured all his hatred into my brother, his son.
Then Aaron died.
It was September 18, 2012. I was 30 years old, my brother had just turned 26 a few weeks prior.
I had a cold.
It rained that day, but cleared up in the afternoon to become a brilliant bright autumn day.
My friend Michele came over for dinner and to play Phase Ten and then I laid down early because I wasn’t feeling well.
I don’t remember what time it was, not very late, when Nathan came upstairs. He said “Call Aaron.” I asked him why. “I just saw a fatal motorcycle crash in Lowell, it was on the news.”
I called Aaron but he didn’t answer. So I called my mom and I was kind of freaking out. “There was a fatal crash in Lowell and I can’t get ahold of Aaron.” She called Aaron’s wife, Teresa. Teresa had been trying to get ahold of him for about an hour, he was late coming home.
I called my stepmom and dad. My stepmom told me that it was probably not Aaron but my gut knew. While I was talking to her my phone kept dropping the call which it NEVER does. I think I called her back about six or seven times. I was panicking too.
Finally my mom called and said “We are going to the accident scene.” So Michele came back over and stayed with the kids and we went to the scene too. We went the back way, up Hastings road. By the time we got there it was dark. It seemed like there were a hundred fire trucks there, and as many cops, and the sky was lit up with their flashing lights. They wouldn’t let us over the bridge to see if it was him so we had to go through Lowell and come at the scene from the north.
When I got there my mom and Abe (my other brother) and Teresa were in the grass about 300 feet from the accident site and they were freaking out and I knew then that it was my brother.
There was a man there in a truck. He was from the Victim’s Unit. He talked to me and Abe for about an hour I think, but I don’t remember what about. He was very nice. He told me to call the funeral home in the morning.
I don’t know how long we stayed at the accident scene but eventually it was all cleaned up and a cop told us to go home.
You might be wondering how my brother was killed. He was driving his motorcycle north and a teen driver turned east (left) in front of him, he crashed into the passenger side of the pickup. He had three fatal injuries - a ruptured aorta, a head injury, and a broken neck. He died instantly. He wasn’t wearing a helmet and a helmet wouldn’t have saved him.
I didn’t sleep much when I got home. I think I stayed up till 1 or 2 in the morning. I didn’t really cry either, because I was in a state of shock.
The next day (Wednesday) I called the funeral home first thing in the morning and arranged to have my family meet there that morning. We had to go talk about arrangements. I vaguely remember this.
I cried a lot that day and for a lot of days afterward. What I did not do was eat. In fact I did not eat anything for eleven days after my brother died.
On Thursday nothing happened. I had to go get a shirt for the funeral. I can’t remember what it looked like.
On Friday we had two visitations, held a few hours apart. Here I will go into more detail.
I have to first say, this whole time was extremely surreal, and every moment i was thinking about my brother and his dead body. Everything reminded me of my brother. I saw an old man walking on the road and I thought “you are an old man, you should have been killed, not my brother.”
Anyway Friday came and in the afternoon we met at the funeral home and I was all upset inside (but not showing it) because I was scared to see my brother’s dead body. We walked in and I could see him in his blue casket. I finally went over to him and touched his hands. Here is how he looked: His j lower jaw on both sides was swollen, and the jaw was moved slightly to the left. His bottom lip was full but his top lip was thin and wrinkled, like the fat had been sucked out of it, and the lip was a little fuller on the right than on the left. The lips were really weird. I could tell he had thick makeup on his face. His forehead had a big giant cut down the middle like frankenstein, and it was covered with makeup, but it was still there. Where his fucking head split open on the side of a Ford truck driven by a teenager.
The big cut on his forehead looked like a stretch mark, with all the makeup on it.
My brother’s hands looked normal but they were freezing. Have you ever touched a dead body? They get really cold with all that poison they run through the veins.
My brother’s chest was not there. Instead there was a hard plastic thing covering his chest, and hsi shirt covering that. I think the chest thing was because my brother’s ribs were probably obliterated in the accident and they had to put something there.
So here I was face to face with my brother’s corpse.
I don’t know if I cried. I really don’t know. I think I probably did but honestly I don’t know.
What I remember of the visitation is that my cousin and I kept going outside to smoke cigarettes on the porch of the funeral home. Because we are both ridiculous, we made a lot of jokes. But I felt all hollow inside and I felt like someone had pulled the chair out from under me. We saw a man on a scooter pulling a wagon with rolls of paper in it and this is not funny at all but we laughed about it.
I remember a lot of women wearing lots of perfume coming and hugging me and making me put my face in their sweatered boobs, because when I was inside the funeral home, I stayed sitting in a chair by my brother.
I don’t remember hardly anyone except my cousin John, and the man who sexually abused me as a child came and hugged me too. All I remember is that he had white tennis shoes on with velcro straps. I wish he was back in prison where he belongs.
After the visitation we went back to my mom’s house. There was SO MUCH GOOD FOOD there!!! But I could not eat any of it. Everyone was sending food to our family and I wish I could have eaten it but I could not eat when my brother died. I had to make my body feel as hollow as my heart felt. I barely could drink water, but I did get enough to stay alive at least.
After a couple hours at mom’s house, we had to go back to the funeral home for the second visitation and i have no memory of this.
The next day, Saturday, was the funeral. It was held at the church next door to my mom’s house. I remember my cousins Brad and Tyler being there, even though ordinarily I never talk to them ever, we are not close at all, in fact that’s the last time I even saw them. I remember a man from my brother’s work getting up and telling funny stories about him. I got up and said some words too, and I wasn’t nervous and I didn’t cry.
Afterwards we all drove to the cemetery. There was a hole with a canopy and a big cement box in it. The pastor said something and then they lowered his casket into the cement vault. They put the lid on the vault. At that point we handed out shovels and we all started burying my brother by hand. It felt really good to do something with the pain.
Once we were done burying him, we went to the church across the street from the cemetery and had the luncheon, which I remember because everyone in my family ditched me and I had to sit alone, near some of my brother’s friends that I didn’t know.
I left the luncheon and saw my cousin outside. His girlfriend was being whiny and saying “I’m so tired, i need to go home, Johnnnnn, let’s go hoooooome.” and I lost my shit. I was like GODDAMMIT we are TRYING to GRIEVE and you’re up here being a selfish fucking bitch, not caring that John wants to be with US right now and NOT YOU so BACK THE FUCK UP BITCH
…. And lots more.
Abe, John, and Todd ended up getting involved and separating us before I got my hands around her neck. I was THISCLOSE. #fuckinangerissues
What can I say, I am a little bit crazy, and I was in a weird ass situation.
Later we all went to my mom’s house and played Scattergories and it was so fucking hilarious. We laughed and laughed and laughed and I have no idea why or how this was happening just hours after burying my little brother.
I finally ate food eleven days after my brother died.
One thing I did for about eight weeks after he died, is I was keenly aware of the time, and every time it would get to 6:42pm (his time of death) I would hold my breath. Every day I’d look at the clock throughout the day and think “Nine days ago at this time my brother had no idea he was about to die.” I thought this obsessively.
I also was deluded and thought I could talk to him even though he was dead and I was convinced he was communicating back to me. Maybe he was, anything is possible.
Immediately after his death, my brother’s partner started fucking dudes and drinking excessively and abandoning their children. I stepped in (along with other family members) and cared for the children for weeks at a time, more than once.
Seven months after Aaron died, Teresa found her dad hanging in the spare room of the house he had shared with Aaron and Teresa. He killed himself. And a few months after that, Teresa’s sister’s unborn child died in the womb. I was certain there was a curse on the house.
After my brother died I felt one emotion just as strongly as I felt grief, and that was fear. I was always jumpy and scared of everything. Me and Alli went to The Haunt a month after Aaron died and there was a scene of a morgue and I just freaked the hell out because I kept thinking of my brother laying there in the morgue, and I thought about his autopsy, them taking out his organs and taking samples of his body fluids and looking at all his smashed up broken insides.
I am still very afraid of something bad happening again. I am constantly worried about my husband and children. My oldest child is almost 18 and does not have a driver’s license because I am too scared to let her drive. I’m certain she will end up getting killed in an accident. My middle daughter is almost old enough to start driver’s training and she will want to do that any time now and I just can’t let her.
If I hear sirens I always call my mom and Abe (if the sirens are going toward their house) to make sure they are okay. If I hear about an accident in the news I think carefully who I know that could be in that area and I call and check on them. I am so worried that another accident will happen.
It has been six years since my brother was killed and I don’t think I will ever get over it.