Twenty Years

Adam Rogers Gillette
5/22/84 - 8/22/00

Twenty years. For some, that's a lifetime, but for most of us, it marks a coming of age. For some, retirement after twenty years marks a successful career. A twentieth wedding anniversary is, these days, a real accomplishment.

August 19, 2000, began as a good day. My son Adam, 16, flopped on the bed beside me and ran lines with me for an upcoming play. He needed to take his computer for a repair, then headed to work as a restaurant busser on Hutchinson Island off Fort Pierce, Florida. He enjoyed his job and told me to always tip the server 20%, because it had to be divvied up with other staff.

Our daughter Becky was visiting, leaving that night after we celebrated our other daughter's birthday. Terri had just turned 21, so it was a big deal. We had dinner where my mother, Jane Pendergraft, was playing piano at Out-of-Bounds. It was a special evening. Becky drove north; the rest of us headed home. 

In the wee hours of Sunday, August 20, 2000, Adam had worked late, driven a co-worker home and (if memory serves) had dropped him off somewhere. Driving home, something went wrong. Along US. 1, his front right tire went off the shoulder. When he turned the wheel to the left to return all four tires to the highway, his car spun out of control close to what is now Dyer Chevrolet (formerly Bill Shultz Chevrolet).

A driver coming from the opposite direction saw the erratic headlights of a car spinning and called 911. Adam's car flipped and landed on its roof with such force that he was ejected out the rear window.  His head and one arm took the brunt of impact. He never regained conciousness, but that driver did what he could by calling. Twenty years later, I am sure he remembers that night. I hope he is well.

Two young women on their way home from a party stopped and talked to him until the ambulance arrived. They showed up at the hospital, too. Twenty years later, I'm sure they remember that night, too. I hope they are well.

We got a call from my brother-in-law Stacy, who had retired from the St. Lucie County Fire Department. Someone had heard the Gillette name on the scanner and called him, but we didn't know anything. Shortly after that, however, we had a call from a police officer at the local hospital. "Is it bad?" I asked. 

"You need to come now," he said. Twenty years later, in his line of work, that officer has doubtless made other similar calls, has seen trauma of all sorts. With today's social climate, many officers are leaving law enforcement altogether. I hope he is well. I hope he knows how much I appreciate his insistence on speed.

When we arrived at the hospital, Adam filled the emergency room bed. When had he gotten so tall? At 16, he was a handsome guy with auburn hair and freckles. One of the nurses said, "We knew by looking at him that this was someone who was loved." 

Twenty years later, much has changed at the hospital. Then, there was no neurologist on call. Today there is a trauma unit. First responders had not been able to intubate Adam on the highway and so they took him to the closest hospital. We waited for a bed to open up at the nearest trauma center -- Holmes Regional in Melbourne.  

(When I eventually got copies of the records, someone had signed that "parent was too upset to sign" off on numerous unnecessary tests that were performed, which was not true. Of course we were upset, but we were all too aware of what was going on. I refused to pay until I got some answers, but in the end, that answer was "When a child comes in, people want to do all they can." They also reduced the bill to something manageable.)

Mark Zook was the Florida Highway Patrol homicide investigator sent to the scene. He is also a friend who fingerprinted Adam as a little homeschooler years before. He told us that Adam might have been changing a CD in his beloved new sound system or scratching his leg. He wasn't driving recklessly or too fast. Alcohol was not a factor. 

Twenty years later, Mark has seen more than his share of trauma with FHP and in his own life. His own son Ian died in 2004 in service to our country. His wife Karen does a wonderful work with Gold Star moms, honoring those who have suffered loss. Today, I hope they are well.

The first responders who helped Adam, the nurses, the technicians, the staff at Holmes, Dr. Shepherd -- perhaps they have all retired by now. Once transported to Holmes, Adam was put into a barbituate coma in hopes that the bleeding in his brain would recede. Friends and family flooded the waiting room. One friend called to see what he could do and I asked him to bring coats -- the waiting room was, I'd been told, very cold, and some people were staying many hours. Others made the hour long drive to support me, or my husband, or our other children.Calls came in with words of encouragement. People visited. Usually, a nurse told me, they are more restrictive with ICU patients, but with a teen, they knew his friends might need closure. Allowances were made.

Many of those young people are now married, with families of their own. (I know of three babies born who were named after him, including his nephew Adam II.) Twenty years later, I still hear new stories about Adam occasionally, still read posts from friends and family members who miss him too. Today I hope they are all well.

On August 22, after numerous tests were performed to make absolutely certain he was gone, Adam was declared brain dead. An organ donor, he saved five lives and gave sight to two others. Although I have been in contact with some of the organ recipients, I don't know how they are today with one notable exception: Chuck Daniels, the young man who received Adam's heart, died in 2013. I regret not knowing, because I would have been at his service. I am grateful that he had 13 years in which to become a nurse and get married. I know one thing: it has been seven years since Adam's heart stopped beating, the heart Chuck let me hear again after we met in person. And I know that his mother is still grieving, because I am still grieving after twenty.

In twenty years, so much happens, so many wonderful things! Our family has experienced the joy of births, marriages, graduations, accomplishments, careers. We've met new friends, lived new places, done new things. But along with those joys, there have been losses of many kinds -- divorces, deaths of parents, disappointments, all within the same twenty years.

Such is life. It's a mixed bag. There are good days and bad, sunshine and rain. Nothing, and I mean nothing, has profoundly affected me and our family as much as losing Adam -- although I must interject with my granddaughter Jasmine's wise words to me at about age 3. She caught me crying and asked if it was because of Uncle Adam. "When you lose someone you love, you are sad for a long time," I said. "Silly Nana," she retorted. "We didn't lose him. We know where he is!"

And we do. As Christians, we believe in heaven. We know Adam's character and faith. We "grieve, but not as those who have no hope," as Paul wrote to the Thessalonian church. Hope does not, however, take away the sense of loss. It is just a fact that the young man we love and miss every day of our lives is not present. We can't call him on the phone or listen to him laugh or get a hug in his strong arms.

I have learned a lot in twenty years, much of it because of my son's death. Most importantly, I have learned that if you are settled in your mind and heart that God exists, you're stuck. If you know in your "knower" that there is a God, all the arguments about "a loving God wouldn't do this" or "a just God wouldn't do that" are futile. IF you believe that God exists, he can do whatever the hell he wants to do! He's God. You're not. He doesn't ask for our permission. He doesn't wait until we approve of his plan.

I am stuck. I see evidence of God's existence in nature, in the love and lives of others, throughout history. God doesn't behave the way I want him too, which is strangely comforting. If he did, I would be tempted to think I had created a false belief out of my own desires and expectations. God is not what I wish him to be, and yet he has convinced me that he loves me. That he wants the best for me. That he is in control.

Twenty years later, I still believe this. I don't understand why Adam died at 16, unformed, unfinished, a life unfulfilled. I don't like it. I remind God frequently of this, and yet, as a Christian mother, heaven is the destination I prayed for, for him. For all my children and grandchildren and loved ones. For all my friends and family. That he is there sooner than I anticipated is a hardship for me and for those who also miss him, but not for him. Not for him.

Twenty years. I've held new grandbabies, seen my first grandchild become an adult. Many new firefighters at Indian River State College have benefited from the Adam Gillette Memorial Firefighter scholarship started and continued by the local firefighters union. I've watched as my daughter Becky has become a nurse and expand her family. Daughter Terri has overcome many obstacles in her life, physically and emotionally. Son Caleb is a police lieutenant with a Master's degree. I know that at every birthday party, every ceremony, every wedding, every funeral of their grandparents, every family gathering, every holiday they miss Adam sorely. Then again, it's a daily thing. Sometimes an hourly thing.

But life goes on. It wouldn't honor our memory of Adam or our love for him to let his absence -- however sorely felt -- have a negative effect. People used to say, "I don't know how you do it" to which I thought -- what's the alternative? Become an alcoholic or drug addict to numb myself so I don't feel the pain? I wouldn't be able to feel the love either, then.

What has helped? Talking about Adam, hearing about him from others, writing about him -- these have certainly helped. My faith in a God who loves me so much I can tell him I hate him at times (and I have). The support of so many friends who, hopefully, will never understand what it's like to bury a child, and the support of too many friends who know it well.

Not long after Adam's death, I heard someone say this: Significant loss changes you, and you spend the rest of your life finding out who you are now. Twenty years ago, I had a significant loss that is incomparable to any other event in my life. And it did, indeed, change me. I am not as nice a person as I once was. I am more impatient with trivialities and complaints. I am not as empathetic with people who are  upset about things I consider unimportant. I feel as though I have gone through something far worse than coronavirus or social unrest or political polarization and sometimes I just want to scream at people to shutthefuck up about things that, in the eternal scope of things, don't even register as a blip on the screen.

I'm working on that.

Twenty years later, I have babbled on and on, but what do I really want to get across to you? It's 2020, the year we have grown to loathe with its constant turmoil in nature, in society, everywhere we look. I would say this: There are not all that many people who truly love any one of us. Truly, deeply. Our lives do not really matter in a profound way to more than a relative handful. Think of the billions of people on the planet -- who will miss you when you're gone? Who will still cry when you've been gone twenty years?

Adam's life mattered, and continues to matter. His love for me, his constant good cheer (once he outgrew his temper!). The world...MY world... was better because he was in it. And now he isn't, not in the same way. 

So I would tell you that if you are blessed with someone who loves you...if you are important to someone, whether a parent or sibling or friend or lover or other family member ... please don't do things, or say things, that will push them away. You can't afford to lose someone like that if only because there are so few of them! Your life will be the lesser for that loss. Adam loved me - of that I am certain. He loved his father, his brother, his sisters, his grandparents and cousins, his friends. The "not-here-ness" of that love has affected us all.

Sometimes it is beyond our control -- we try to stay close and our feelings aren't wanted or reciprocated. That hurts, I know. But look at all the others who DO love us back! What a gift they are! Cherish them always.

Twenty years later, I am hurting. I am crying. I am wallowing a bit more than usual. But I am also so grateful for having sixteen years with a remarkable young man. And even more than that, I am grateful for the belief that I will see him once again.

I have hoped that many people are well today, this day before the twentieth anniversary of Adam's death, a temporary change of location that profoundly changed me and everyone who loved him, who love him still. And I do hope they are well.

I know that Adam is.

(c) 2020 Ellen Gillette