“Not again. This cannot be happening again. Maybe this is Deja Vu? Maybe I’m dreaming. My life could not possibly be this shitty for this to happen to me twice” Jo thought to herself as she ignored the officer speaking to her on the phone.

The officer echoed in her ear, “Hello? M’am, are you still there?” He sounded like an old record disk that just kept playing the same track over and over again. She meant to answer him, but every time she thought to speak, nothing came out and her mind began wandering again. She put down the phone and walked out the front door.

“M’am? Hello? I know this is hard for you to hear…” and the door shut behind her.

She hadn’t been living in this neighborhood for too long, but she walked to the only place she knew she’d find comfort in – her parent’s grave. She sat next to the two tombstones that read “Eric and Talia Thompson.”

“Hey mom, hey dad, so I need some help. You know how after you guys died I went into the foster care system? Anyway, that’s been going well, I was placed with this place great family a couple years back, and they actually adopted me. Let’s be honest, they will never ever replace you guys, but they do a pretty good job of coming close, but you’re never going to believe what freaking happened. Well, you probably know, are they up there with you yet? I just don’t know what to do. Why is this happening to me again? I need your help; I need your strength.”

She sat in the cemetery talking to her parents for what seemed like forever. She walked back home and saw the cops waiting for her outside of her house and after the talk with her parents she decided it was time to face reality. They explained how the accident happened, but it all sounded like mumbles because the only thing on her mind was the fact that her younger sister was at volleyball practice and she hadn’t heard the news yet.

Jo was so caught up in the Deja Vu feeling of this routine that happens with the cops that she momentarily forgot what would happen to her younger sister, Christine. She hasn’t been through this before, she doesn’t know what it’s like to lose two parents at once. At this point, Jo has lost four parents, but Christine hasn’t lost anyone in her life, so she decided to be the person Jo wished she had when her parents died. She picked up Christine from volleyball practice shared the devastating news and promised her that she would never leave her.

She didn’t know how she was going to do it, but she wasn’t going to let Christine feel alone like she had felt for years. She knew she was facing this horrible situation for a reason. Her parents died in that car crash, so that she would know how to handle it again and bring her sister through it. She was given the strength that she always envied from her parents – both of them.