Daniel’s other name, given to him as a co-joined first name, was “Paul” for a namesake, my uncle.

August 28, 1991 was like many Wisconsin late summer days. It was hot outside, the sky clear, with no ominous weather — no sudden hail storm or tornado warning, not even a light rain — to foreshadow or cause the single-car accident that would claim my son’s life that afternoon. Daniel-Paul was driving home from the orthodontist’s office, the braces finally removed from his teeth, and most likely he raised his eyes from the country highway to check out his new smile in the rearview mirror. At the self-conscious age of 16, he wouldn’t have given his reflection more than a cursory glance at the dental clinic, but while driving home alone, the impulse to look in a mirror must have been irresistible. That’s the way I imagine it happening, anyway.

I immediately understood that someone had died when I received the telephone call, but back then, dead bodies were routinely reported to me. I was the crisis intervention counselor who performed face-to-face death notifications for all shifts for our suburban-Milwaukee police department, and we had a clearly established protocol. My pager was supposed to go off; I wasn’t supposed to get a call at home because home telephone numbers were regarded as sacred. I said to him, “Wait a minute … back up….”

“I’m sorry to say it outright like this, but your son Daniel died today in a car accident. He was dead when police arrived at the scene.”

Suddenly I understood this man wasn’t calling for my help. Then I couldn’t respond in any way… couldn’t speak, couldn’t make my legs work. I had been standing when the phone rang, but my knees buckled and I crumpled on the floor. Summer, 14, was first into the kitchen; at the sight of my tears, she grabbed Brook’s hand, stopping the 11-year old in her tracks, too. Nothing seemed real, and I stared at the girls, wondering how much they had already heard. It was as if I was watching someone else’s family, and I needed a clue from them how to proceed. Five-year old PJ crawled into my lap, crying. I held my youngest son close to me, though I no longer seemed to be in my own body. From some far-away place, I asked for the details.

The car’s right front tire apparently meandered onto a loose-gravel shoulder and the car went nose-first into a steep ditch. It flipped end-over-end, propelling Daniel nearly 100 yards into a thick cornfield. He was dead before a witness and police could locate his body in the field.

Any bereaved parent will understand that the most difficult moment occurred at the gravesite. I wanted to kiss my first-born child one more time regardless of his injuries; and so the coffin was opened again. The funeral director and I reached the intersection of cross purposes when I wouldn’t allow him to seal it a last time and proceed with the burial. I couldn’t do what was being asked of me, couldn’t be a willing participant in a ceremony that would conclude with putting a child of mine into a gaping hold in the ground. But I only managed to stall the inevitable.

On the day of their births, I had promised each of my children a million kisses. Had I given Daniel enough kisses to send him on this journey? Surely Daniel extracted a million tears from our family in only days. It was unthinkable that the world continued on without him and I found it incomprehensible that the “real me” was not already buried alongside my child.

Two weeks after Daniel’s death, the chief of police ordered me to a civilian psychologist to be certified as fit to return to service following a traumatic incident.

“What do I say to a grief counselor about grief?” the psychologist asked. “I won’t pretend that I know how you feel, because I don’t. But I do understand that your life will never be the same as it was before.”

No. It won’t.