Tragedy

I never really knew Anita well. She was a counselor when I started. She was chunky and had an unusually beautiful face. She vaped constantly. There was always a cloud of smoke around her that smelled of breakfast cereal. She laughed with a loud, obnoxious cackle. She told really off color, crude, sexual jokes. She had been a meth addict, done prison time, got sober, and turned her life around. She had two daughters. We probably had three conversations total. She was then transferred to our other facility where she worked for years.

One morning I saw the Program Director crying and asked her if she was okay. She grabbed my hand, led me to her office and shut the door behind her. She told me Anita’s daughters had died.

Her oldest was a senior in high school and wanted to visit a couple of colleges. Her father said he’d take her on a road trip to check a few out. The younger one was 15 and wanted to tag along. She didn’t want to miss any last chance at fun with her big sister. The father was excited and so were the girls. And off they went.

The father still smoked meth “now and then” and was constantly eating THC edibles. I don’t know if either of these played a factor but somewhere on a Texas highway, late at night, he fell asleep at the wheel. He woke to a violent collision which took the lives of both his daughters. He was rushed to the hospital for a day or two and then flew home.

Anita went on leave. I’d ask the program director about her daily. She said Anita was drinking and taking Valium. Sleeping a lot. She said she was there when her daughter’s father first got back and walked in the house. Anita stood up. They didn’t speak. They just hugged and cried.

On the eve of the sisters’ funeral their father got on a motorcycle in street clothes and no helmet. He drove 80mph into a brick wall killing himself instantly. There was no need for a note.

A year later Anita came back to work. She came to our facility as lead counselor. I didn’t know what I was expecting but she was full of life, making the same crude jokes, laughing, vaping, eating, interacting, working… I got to know her a little more and one day after a long conversation about a problem client I asked her how she did it. How, after what happened, she could laugh, and be so full of life? She told me she had made a deal with God. She has to live and go on and if she does that she gets to see her daughters again. She said some days when it’s too much, she remembers the bargain and it keeps her going. I hugged her and left the office because I thought if I tried to say something I might cry.

A few months later Anita was suspended pending an investigation because of a racial joke she made at a black counselor’s expense. She wanted to apologize and keep her job, but HR eventually left it up to the counselor.

I spoke to him in the hopes of saving her job but quickly abandoned my goal. Her joke was fucking gross and directed at the only black face in a room full of people. How lonely he must’ve felt in that moment. By the end of the conversation I commended the counselor on his courage to step up and step forward. And to not budge. She deserved to get fired. And she did.

I never saw or spoke to Anita again. Last I heard she got another job at a different treatment center and is doing well. I picture her at the new place. Vaping, laughing that loud cackle, still making inappropriate jokes… but always holding up her end of the bargain.

I don’t believe in God but if he does exist, I sure hope he holds up his end.