Two years-ago today, at 10:45 in the morning, my late wife, Veronica Powell, was struck by a truck while walking near Harvey Park. She was killed instantly. I did not post about the incident then. It was all too sudden and too horrific. I did not feel it appropriate to post about such a personal tragedy on social media. But two years have passed. I now feel that it is important to acknowledge the loss publicly and to share the events of that day.
The following was written a month to the day after Veronica’s passing.
May 7th, 2021 would have marked the forty-year anniversary of Veronica’s and my life together. Forty years is a pretty big chunk of one’s life to share with another person. In that time, we were young lovers, then parents once (first identical twin girls), and then parents again (two more daughters). We essentially raised two families together as our two sets of daughters were born ten years apart. I gripped Veronica’s hand as I watched all four of my daughters come out of her body. You can’t get much closer to another person than that.
She played flute, I played guitar, and in the early years we sometimes played at friends’ weddings. I remember one day when we played a friend’s wedding in the Colorado foothills. After the wedding, we sat in the tall grass on a mountain side overlooking Denver and played music together and we talked about everything all that sunny afternoon. I saw then that Veronica was a very special person and I knew that I would remember that afternoon for the rest of my life, and I have. But I must stop-stop-stop. I could write an entire book of days, memories, countless family pets, vehicles, road trips, houses, apartments, rooms, quiet conversations, tears and laughter that I will remember the rest of my life. Adventures and misadventures, catastrophes and quarrels; yes, there are painful memories, harsh words, long…long bitter silences (it wasn’t simple; it wasn’t easy. Marriage isn’t. Life isn’t. It’s no secret to friends and family that our last few years were difficult). but there was civility; there were reconciliations. There had to be. There was too much at stake. Forty-years of marriage and four kids. The train never came off the track. Until it did.
Veronica was a farmer’s daughter from a nine-sibling Nebraskan family (her maiden-name, Lauby, is ubiquitous in Lexington, NE). Over the years the Laubys became my second family, in many ways my first family. I would never have made it through this horrific event without their support. They are amazing people. Her sisters flew in from California and Colorado. I was a mess. They helped me get through the memorial, all the difficult, necessary details.
Veronica was a genius. I realize that people toss that word around lightly, but Veronica really was a genius by definition. Her I.Q. was considerably over 140---the academic criteria for genius. And it showed. After nearly 10 years of living together in Denver (we were by then common law married), she received a scholarship in Biology at the University of Oregon in Corvallis. Her plan was to eventually attain a medical degree and become a veterinarian. We moved to Oregon, but in a year, she became pregnant with our twins. One day she came to me and told me that she had decided what she wanted to do with her life, and that was to be a full-time mother to our daughters. And from that day on, that is exactly what she became. We were officially married at the Unitarian Church in Denver in a double-wedding with her sister Elizabeth and Elizabeth’s fiancé Rex in June of 1990.
Veronica wanted to home-school the girls. This was back in the early ‘90s. I was wary, but I trusted her intelligence and her character and I agreed. Creative, intuitive, and wise, hers was an unconventional education ahead of its time: read-aloud together every night, embroidery and stitch-work, all sorts of crafts, games, puzzles, books, books, books, magazines, art projects, gardening, volunteering (at the “I Believe in Me” horse therapy ranch), along with rigorous studies in science and math (Veronica inherited her mother’s analytical mind. Leota Mae Lauby, was one of the first women to graduate with an advanced degree in mathematics from Rice University. This was back in the ‘40s.) Our twins had never stepped foot in a K-12 classroom, they both scored in the 99th percentile on both the ACT and the SAT. They were Nebraska state champions in Hippology through 4-H, and 10th nationally. They won top National Scholastic Achievement Awards for their writing and earned scholarships to a prestigious Ivy league college back East (Smith College) and went on to earn their Master’s Degrees, and are now employed in their professions. Our younger two daughters, Hannah and Eleanor, are following in suit. Hannah is working on a full-length graphic novel (update, Hannah is now enrolled at UNK), and Ellie tutors psychology students at Central Community College and teaches horse riding to children at Christine Wilson’s “Horseback Riding and Pony Parties.” The little girls adore her. They shout for her attention, “Ellie, Ellie!” (Update, Eleanor “Oakley” is now enrolled at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass.) I am so proud of them. I could go on-and on.
On Father’s Day, I do not get socks and ties; I get hand-made cards with original illustrations, poetry, and 60+ page short stories in which their father is the protagonist.
Veronica, I will remind you, was their inspiration, mentor, teacher, and role model.
Veronica loved animals. She worked on and off at veterinarian clinics and, from the start, to live with Veronica was to live with animals: cats, dogs, birds, turtles. She could tend the sick ones back to health with patience, tenderness and love, and yet, when her most beloved pets of many years were dying---cats Hamlet and Dumpster (you can guess where she found this abandoned kitten), and our family dog, Belle---rather than take them to a vet, she preferred to euthanized them herself, with heart-breaking love, in private. She was an incredibly strong woman.
Veronica was a deeply private and spiritual person, a member of St. James Catholic Church here in Kearney, but more recently a devoted follower of Mata Amritanandamayi, known throughout the world as Amma, or Mother, for her selfless love and compassion toward all beings, who, through donations, builds orphanages world-wide for poor children. On several occasions, we packed up the kids and drove down to Amma’s ashram in Santa Fe, New Mexico (one of many throughout the world), and gathered, along with thousands of her followers, under an enormous white tent for celebration and “darshan”: a blessing. Veronica journaled extensively on her relationship to God and wrote daily affirmations. She never proselytized or in any way forced her beliefs on friends or family. Always open-minded, ecumenical in belief; she respected all religions and spiritual paths.
A brilliant woman with a curious and interesting mind, Veronica and I would often discuss literature, life, our plans during our many walks and hikes. How many can say Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” is their favorite book?? She loved to describe the characters, the episodes, the wisdom in the various books during our long walks. And there were many favorites, from Tolkien to Shakespeare, from Dr. Suess to C.S. Lewis, and many more during our many long walks and discussions. At the time of her death, she was reading the works of Sigrid Undset, the second woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. You should see our living room---resembles a library (no TV in the house for over 35 yrs!). She and the daughters read aloud every night together into their teens.
We liked to walk, in fact, we named our first daughter, Walker. Our motto was “We Will Not Waver.” In the early years we would walk along Denver’s sidewalks, through Denver parks, through peoples lawns! leaning shoulder-to-shoulder, and chant “We will not waver. We will not waver.” Ah…youthful love. Veronica was absolutely the rock and center of the Powell family. I was a kite, fluttering in the wind, tied to that rock by a thin string. I am far from perfect, and she put up with a lot. I often wondered what would happen if that string broke, snagged in a tree? broken in a ditch? I guess I’ll find out. There is an indescribable, gaping hole in the Powell household now, and in the Powells’ hearts, I know that.
Veronica, in her own quiet way, was a resolute force of nature; and she was unquestionably the most significant influence on my life. I am a better person in this world because of her. Her sudden and painful departure tore apart a deep bond matured between us for forty years. I am more than a little lost inside. I know her tragic death will haunt me the rest of my life.
This sweet, brilliant, beautiful person did not deserve to go like this.
*
I would not wish on anyone the morning of Veronica’s death---a police officer knocking at your door, the words “Are you the father of Eleanor Powell? You have to come to the hospital with me right now.” I followed the officer to Good Sam. It was just a few blocks. A sickening dread overwhelmed me as I drove those familiar streets. You never want to go through that. You never want to go through a day like that.
They took me into to a room at the hospital. A Priest was there, sitting in a chair across from me, holding a Bible. I asked him, “Where is my wife? Where is Veronica?”
“She didn’t come in on the ambulance.”
I didn’t understand. What did that mean? Ellie was in the emergency room. I was confused and disoriented. What the hell was happening? A neurosurgeon entered looking grave. She said they didn’t know the severity of Ellie’s head injury. They would have to do a CAT scan. They let me see her in ER---lying on a gurney, covered in blankets up to her neck, twenty-two stiches in her scalp (and now a permanent disfigurement), looking around, confused and agitated. I spent a sleepless night in I.C.U with her, curled up in a big recliner. Her sister Hannah arrived early in the next morning. Hannah and I told Ellie that her mother didn’t survive the accident. That was the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do in my life. My beautiful daughter. She doesn’t remember anything about that day, thank God, and I hope she never does. It’s a miracle she wasn’t killed, too. He missed killing her by inches---she was struck in the head by the truck’s side-view mirror, that’s how close he came to killing both of them.
I was taken back to the private hospital room. The priest was there, sitting across from me. The neurosurgeon was there. “Where is my wife?”
“She didn’t come in on the ambulance.” That’s all they would say.
Then the officer entered the room. He stood at the doorway and quietly informed me that he was sorry, but that Veronica was also struck by the truck, and that she did not survive the accident. It was too much; all too sudden. I couldn’t speak. I went into a kind of shock. I left the hospital. Walked through the parking lot. Got in the car. I started to drive back to the house, and then it all came crashing down on me as I drove, the reality of what had just happened, and I had to pull over and stop by the curb, and I sobbed and sobbed uncontrollably and raged out loud. “No! Veronica! Not Veronica!”
All the miserable creeps and scumbags still walking the earth…
I was in shock, disoriented. That passed. I was agitated and in disbelief and stressed, that passed. (I lost five pounds in the following week.) I was depressed, that passed. But now, though I am not depressed, I am having a hard time being happy. When I feel happiness, I shut down. I keep re-enacting the gruesome event in my imagination. It’s tormenting. Why do I do this? I’m anxious. Whenever Ellie or Hannah leave the house, I get anxious---what if I never see them again? Sounds irrational or over-dramatic, but it’s true; it happened---Veronica left to walk the dog one morning and we never saw her again. Eleanor suffers from occasional panic and night terrors---though as I write, they seem to be lessening. Like the other phases, these hopefully will pass with time and probably some therapy. But…
---a sunny spring morning on one of the quietest residential streets in Kearney, between a cemetery, a ballpark, and a childrens’ playground, no traffic, just one 7,000 pound truck. I will always wonder what, exactly, went on in that truck’s cab in those five seconds that remained in Veronica’s life---I will always wonder what Veronica was thinking in those last five seconds of her life, walking down the sidewalk on a beautiful Nebraska morning in conversation with her with her youngest daughter. The officer said that she did not suffer. I never got to say good-bye. No one did.
And I still haven’t said good-bye. I can’t. I went by myself to spread some of Veronica’s ashes by a favorite tree in the hills out back of her family’s farm where we used to walk sometimes. But I haven’t said goodbye yet. I don’t want to do that yet. It’s too final. It’s like saying goodbye to a part of myself. It’s not easy saying goodbye to someone you know you’re never going to see again.
But the anger now is not just at the driver of that truck, the anger now is also at the universe at large. I am not so sure that anger will pass. Such utter, appalling, absurd senselessness!!! This is a tragedy for all involved, all around. Where is the meaning? Tell me. Faith? In what? That might take a while---if ever.
This has gone on longer than I’d planned, I apologize, but stuff comes up. It’s been therapeutic, and painful in complicated ways.
“These days I seem to think a lot about the things that I forgot to do for you (Veronica)/And all the times I had the chance to.” – Jackson Browne. I have no small amount of pain along those lines.
Thank you for your reading this.
Paul Powell, Veronica’s husband (April 27, 2021). A month to the day after the accident.
*
Sept. 27, 2021 (six months after the accident).
Time has passed. Hard to believe that it has been six months since Veronica’s death. Since then, I have met with the county attorney and the victim’s advocate. That was good for me. Allowed me to speak my mind.
I have never considered myself a vindictive person. I see no sense in locking anyone in a cage like an animal who is not an immediate threat to the community.
Having said that, I feel that a clear message of some kind needs to be sent to the community that such negligent behavior resulting in the loss of life cannot be taken lightly. My daughter Eleanor was hit by a truck driven by a careless driver charged with vehicular homicide and she could have a lasting emotional disability. Her mother was horrifically killed as they stood side-by-side. The driver of that truck will have to live with the burden of his conscience, and with the deeply troubling, I’m sure, images and memories of that day. Veronica’s death is a tragedy for all involved. My daughters have lost their mother, my grandsons their grandmother, and I a life partner of forty years.
Note: More people today are killed by drivers texting (or distractions in general) than by drunk drivers. The year 2021 set a national record for pedestrian deaths. Please drive safely.
Paul Powell
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