Today I did something that I really shouldn't have. I think I even knew as I was doing it, that I shouldn't, but being me, I did it anyway. I think it was some weird attempt to prove something to myself.
After the accident, my Aunt Linda had to take pictures of the wreckage of the car for insurance purposes. A series of shots, detailing all angles of the car, or rather what was left of it. I'd never seen these pictures, though I had always known of their existance. Right after the accident, my aunt was showing them to other members of the family you expressed desire to see them (I guess some weird closure/answers thing), but I was expressly forbidden from looking at them.
Just as no one let me see the article in the paper until the picture had been cut off. They wanted to shelter me from it and I can understand that. After all, my father died in that car.
Of course, I actually had seen a glimpse of the car the night of the accident. We drove up that way and the rode was cut off, but I could see the cars in the distance, though only enough to tell that they were both light in colour and that they were both pretty badly damaged.
I did see the newspaper picture, by accident. Stared at it for several minutes, the image of both cars, of the frozen road where my father lost his life. Definitely painful, but in no means traumatizing. The image never really lingered, thank god. Same with the brief moment or so of footage I saw on the Peterborough news after the accident. It didn't make much of impression, though I did know the accident was pretty bad (obviously) and that the cars were both write-offs.
I've been seeing a psychatrist and she tells me that I need to come to terms with my father's death, that she doesn't think I've done that. I decided to take a look at the insurance photos, the cold hard evidence that the accident was real.
I knew my aunt wouldn't aprove and might not let me see them. However, I'm often at her house, playing around on her computer when she's not around, so this wasn't really a problem. So, I just waited until I was alone and then searched her computer for the pictures. Sure enough, there was a folder labelled "accident".
So I opened it and god what a mistake that was. I thought I was going to be physcially ill looking at those pictures and I'm sure that I'm gonna be seeign them in my mind for quite some time.
It's weird that the pictures of the car all by itself, removed from the scene of the accident, could hit me so hard. Harder than the newspaper picture taken at the scene--though maybe because that was a grainy picture, where as these were of good quality.
It was awful. The car was mangled beyond what I had imagined. The roof was bent upward, the hood forced open, the driver's side completely dented in, the door almost gone. There was broken clash and crushed metal. My father never had a chance.
But it was more than that. You could see the inside of the car, where things had been thrown around in the collison. My aunts things. Familiar things in a car I often rode in. I'm sure there were some of my father's things too, in that mess, though I certainly didn't look closely enough to try and find out.
The only things taken from the wreckage were a few things of my aunts that she really needed and my father's Bruins hat. Everything else, his glasses, things that belonged to my aunt, was left behind. Mainly because no one could stomach the idea of wading through the wreckage, of trying to sort through that mess.
God, I wish I could get the image out of my mind. But, I keep seeing those photos, of the car or what was left of it. My father died in that car. That thought is suddenly in the forefront of my mind and I just wish I could get rid of it.
It's been sixteen months since the accident and I thought I was coming to terms. The nightmares have more or less stopped and I think about the accident less and less, though I still think of my father most of the time. I'd almost gotten to the point where I could think of him without ever thinking of the accident, but I think this is going to cause definite regression.
I should never have looked at those photographs. It was a stupid impulse, trying to prove something to myself. Maybe that I could handle it, that it was just photogrpahs and they had no power to hurt me. I was wrong.
I do this too often. Rush in and do something stupid all the while trying to prove something to myself. Part of it is that I hate it when other people think they know what's best for me, and it makes me want to go do the opposite of what they think I should do. Not always a great policy, since I guess sometimes other people really do know what's best for me. At least, sometimes.
