A Song for a Heart

July 11, 2002

10 months after the terrorist attack on our country.
While I was playing on a beach in Galveston
Hours before Josh looked up at the stars and asked me to marry him.

My friend Lindsey turned a corner too fast and flipped her car. She was seventeen years old.

For the past two days, I’ve been trying to find the words to say on the 5th anniversary of her death. I still haven’t.

Lindsey and I weren’t best friends. We were running buddies in High School. Lindsey and I had both joined the Cross-Country team before it had been popular.
Before the guys had made a perfect score at District.
Before they had won second at State.
Before Cross –Country surpassed Basketball as ‘The Sport’ at our small East Texas High School.
Before all of that, Lindsey and I ran together.
She had asthma and could easily persuade me to stop for a break on our long runs down the country roads that surrounded our school. We would talk about stuff at school- classes and teachers. I also had the reputation of singing when I ran. It would keep our minds off of the long miles in front of and behind us. Lindsey would make requests and I would quickly try to remember whatever lines I could. A lot of times our conversations would drift to Christianity. Lindsey was extremely interested in the book of Revelations. She was a recent edition to the faith, so she was still perplexed by all the ‘cool Christian’ things that most young believers find incredibly interesting. Was the world really going to end? How was it all going to happen?
As I mentioned before, I wasn’t always a Christian. I wasn’t raised in the church, but as soon as I was saved, I became extremely involved. I was President of FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) in high school and everything that came with the title: I was pious yet approachable, I was Super Christian Girl.

This is the part where if my life were a movie, I would have found out how big of an impact I had on Lindsey’s life. I didn’t. I don’t know if she talked to me about these things because of who I was or if it was because she was truly interested. Either way, I was convinced that Lindsey was a member of the faith and bound for heaven one day.

But I wasn’t expecting that day.

July 13, 2002 was a blur. I had been on a family vacation with my father when Lindsey had taken the curve too fast. I arrived back to Livingston on the day of her funeral. My mother greeted me at the door, sat me down, and said that Lindsey’s funeral was in two hours. My clearest memory is of her mother. She was taking condolences, her head bent slightly as she mumbled a “thank you” to every passer-by. As I came to her, she grabbed on to my hand, lifted her eyes, and said ‘Thank you Clare, Thank you for coming. It would have meant a lot to her”.

Again, if life were a movie.

I don’t know why she chose me to say that to. I don’t know why she stopped and looked at me so intently, as if I had truly done something remarkable by coming to the funeral. Like I said, Lindsey and I were never extremely close. Sure, I had been the only white kid to go to her birthday party freshman year (Lindsey was Alabama-Coushatta) but that was more because I was excited to be invited to ANY birthday party.
I like to think it had something to do with our daily runs. Maybe, some of our conversations had changed Lindsey and she had commented to her mother. Maybe not. It scares me a little now to think about what Lindsey would think of me five years later. When I see Lindsey’s mom, I think of the responsibility my classmates and I were given that day, that we should achieve all the things that Lindsey could not. I would like to tell her that I still go on daily runs but have yet to find a better partner. I would tell her that I don’t have all the answers anymore but I am trying.

If only

“If you were with me tonight, I would sing to you just one more time. A song for a heart so big, God wouldn’t let it live”