The End of the Affair

Last week I got a call from CMJ, HIS coroner’s report was finally in and so back to the police station I went.

As far as the police angle goes this is the final business of HIS life, it’ll be filed and that’s it, also the final trip for me to interview room #2 with CMJ.

I like him, he’s good at his job/handling me. He made a quip about “our usual room”, I replied “we have to quit meeting like this”, his response “people are starting to talk”.

I mean who says stuff like that before talking about a final coroner’s report?!?! CMJ and I, and I’m glad for it. Everyone should have CMJ in their life when dealing with something like this.

There was only one surprise and one ugly truth.

When a wreck that significant happens it’s not any big surprise that “blunt force trauma” is the cause of death, ribs, sternum and collarbone where all broken. I imagine other things were too but CMJ didn’t mention them because they didn’t lead to his death.

The surprise: HE was suffering from “mild to moderate” heart disease. Not that it matters now but other than the smoking I thought he was pretty healthy, I guess that’s another bullet HE dodged.

The ugly truth: HE didn’t die instantly.

I’d been content to assume HE did until told otherwise, and finding out exactly when HE died has been a big question in my mind, something I didn’t want to know but needed to know, if that makes any sense?

HE was breathing (but unconscious) when he was pulled from the wreck, ditto when put in the ambulance, he stopped breathing in transit to the hospital and was pronounced on arrival.

That’s anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes that HE was fighting to live, that’s almost unbearable to me. Unconscious or not, what was going through HIS mind? Did HE realize what had happened? Did HE know why he was fighting or what he was fighting for? Did HE think of me?

Or was HIS brain on autopilot, so busy trying to keep his heart pumping and his lungs breathing that nothing else mattered?

I’m hoping for the latter, if it wasn’t a quick death I’m hoping, and infact assuming, that HE was oblivious to everything except trying to stay alive. Anything else is unbearable to me.

So there you have it.

I’ve gotten the answers to the questions I had that can be answered. There’s a whole list of others that can’t be and I’ll have to live with that, I don’t really have much choice.

I thanked CMJ for all of his time and told him that I thought he was really good at his job, and I honestly meant it. Everything from telling me flat out that going to clean out the SUV would do me more harm than good, and going to do it himself, to our final meeting about the coroner’s report was handled exactly the way I needed it to be handled. Or more accurately, I was handled exactly the way I needed to be handled.

I don’t get the feeling he gets thanked a lot and I guess that’s understandable, but I think it’s a shame. Both P and C have said people are in your life for a reason, season or lifetime, I’m glad CMJ was in mine.