Disclaimer: The George J. Mitchell scholarship program is not my idea. It is an actual program sponsored by the US-Ireland Alliance.
Part II
Channel 7 News:
"Today, students across the Waverly University campus have come together to honor Sarah McGee, a student who died Thursday night after sustaining injuries in an accident that took place at the intersection of Willard Road and Carson Boulevard, just outside of campus. Her death is the second that has taken place at this intersection, the first being three years ago of a member of the admissions staff, and this accident is the sixth in the last year.
Students and faculty are banding together to petition the city of Silver Spring to replace the stop signs at the intersection with traffic lights, as the intersection currently poses a hazard to the safety of not only the campus community, but the larger Silver Spring community as well.
Sarah McGee was set to graduate this semester, and was selected as one of 12 George J. Mitchell Scholars, a coveted award sending graduate students to Ireland for a year to study in the program of their choice. Our condolences go out her family."
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Tim doesn't remember much of the last few days. He feels disconnected from his family, from his friends, from the world.
Because every time he closes his eyes, he flashes back to Sarah's last few moments with him in the hospital. Her dark eyes full of pain, her voice full of fear.
And those moments morph into other memories, memories from when they were younger. When he was visiting from college and was babysitting while his parents went out, and the games they played. Helping his mom put her to bed in the early days when she still slept in her crib, reading to her, getting in snowball fights, teasing her, her teasing him, telling her ghost stories, soothing her when she crawled into his bed because she was too stubborn to admit the stories scared her. That time she won the regional spelling bee, that time she won an award for her poem in her high school literary magazine, her voice breaking when she lost at the science fair because she couldn't do him proud.
So many moments that wouldn't happen, stolen from him in a single night. She would never get to embarrass him in front of his far-in-the-future children, she would never get to be "the cool aunt." He would never get to see her become a writer, would never get to see her married, would never see her become a mother.
Each memory, each would-have-been-moment makes the place where his heart should be throb with a sharp ache like being stabbed.
For the umpteenth time, the thought crosses Tim's mind that he should have picked her up from her dorm for her celebration dinner, instead of letting her drive herself over.
Life continues to revolve around Tim. Somehow, someone gets him to his parents' place in Maine in time for the funeral. In a moment of awareness, he sees her casket being lowered into the ground, and he finds the late spring weather too cheerful for something like this. And then he's back in his little apartment in Silver Spring. Someone from the team comes by each day to bring him food, check on him, walk the dog for him, see how he's coping, try to bring him out of his grief.
But something inside of Tim is too lost, too broken right now. All he can do is sit in his bed or at his writing desk, wasting away in the memory of his beloved little sister.