laurawhiterivers

I think nights are the worst.
    

When I watched Shawn’s accident unfold before us, I knew instantly nothing was ever going to be the same for the girls and I again.  I cannot describe how awful it feels knowing thousands of people witnessed my husband’s death live, it was cycled on the news and internet in a frenzy, the very moment of his death replayed on You Tube and discussed at length on social media. News crews combed the area searching for statements from anyone wanting to be on television and some channels even knocked at my door the next day! The next day my husbands body still lay at the hospital for an autopsy and they are looking for a statement from me! This accident has changed our anonymous little family’s life forever. Simply walking into a local restaurant or store has become a stressful event for me. My WordPress page with Shawn’s true obituary has been read no less than 3,767 times and in ten different countries as of this post, and it increases still a little more every day! What I couldn’t have predicted, however, was the outpouring of goodwill from our extended family, friends, business associates and kind strangers.

The Castleton Boat Club membership worked tirelessly to be sure that the memorial picnic and family reunion/pig roast went smoothly. They coordinated with family members, donated personal money and their free time to see it done right.  I know that the picnic they put on was exactly what Shawn had envisioned as his last party, right down to having a pig roast. Billy Walsh and the Operating Engineers presented me with envelopes from the job sites around upstate, some Shawn worked on recently. Over the years Shawn and I have donated and organized job-site fund raising for people in similar situations, I never envisioned myself as a recipient!  Laborers and Iron workers, Slovak Trucking and all guests who attended Saturday’s memorial and dropped a bill in the tip jar or a card with a thoughtful gift have seen to it that the girls and I stay afloat in the storm while we readjust to a world without Shawn as our primary provider.  Northeast Stock Car Old Timers (NESCOT) and the greater racing community in the Upstate Track Circuit (driven and promoted in part by Scott Morris, Heather Steele Thompson, Nancy Bidel and Kim Lavoy – [my apologies if I have missed anyone, most of you know I have stayed off Facebook since the accident]), have been so generous to the children’s account at Key Bank.  Frank and Cindy of Schodack Septic have personally kept track of me as friends and neighbors, bringing breakfast in the morning to be sure I ate in the early days after the accident and checking in at night so I wasn’t so alone.  Stilsing Electric has offered support I am ever grateful for. I appreciated the presence of Lebanon Valley Speedway and Rensselaer Scrap at Saturday’s picnic and in the days after the accident.  Del’s Dawgs donated food, local farmers sent corn and bread. Grand Premier Tire shined Shawn’s truck so when his children drove it to the cemetery Friday night, it was the proudest it has ever looked. Mitch Neary, Dave Sanchez and Wayne Hurley all donated original stickers to use as fundraisers. Kenny Morris and Sons, Inc. have remembered the family. The Advertiser has gifted a forum to share my gratitude publically with the local community.  The residents of Castleton suffered stoically through numerous memorial burn outs on Main Street Saturday, kindly waiting to call the police only much later in the day.  Shawn tore up Main Street with that old blue Ford back in his younger days and drove everyone crazy then – it was fitting you all laid rubber there one last time. (for their sakes, however, let us all run quietly down there now). You can all call Freddy at Grand Premier for tires, since I’m guessing you’ll need some soon.  I have attempted to keep a list of donations and gifts, however I know that I will miss some, please understand- the last two weeks were simply overwhelming for us. If I have not mentioned you here, it is not at all intentional.

To everyone who has helped or given to our family in any way small or large; beautiful sympathy cards, bouquets of flowers, trees to plant, photo albums, memory books for the girls, donations of food or funds, a kind hug or a thoughtful text, or just stopping by to mow my lawn, you must understand that we are all forever grateful to you. Our lives will never be the same without Shawn, but your generosity and kindness reinforce my calm trust that things will be okay, thus giving my daughters faith in our future security and through the pain of his loss. They can sense my confidence and that is because of everyone’s support.

The morning after his accident I shuffled out of the house after only an hour’s sleep, a pain collecting in my chest that has barely just started to lessen.  I was surprised to find someone anonymously left two beautiful, freshly cut star-gazer lilies on my windshield. Thank you whoever you were- I will always imagine it as Shawn, leaving me one final token of his love and affection.

With my most sincere and heart-felt gratitude,

Laura

When I first met Shawn Rivers, I found him to be an obnoxious, insufferable jerk.  He was like the kid in grade school who secretly liked you, so he pulled your ponytail and knocked your ice cream cone onto the ground.  He always said he wore me down over ten years and that was why I picked him; because he wore down my standards. I married him partly because I saw the ingenuity and mechanical creativity he possessed. He truly was unafraid of any challenge or machine he faced. Whether he was responsible for innumerable pieces of equipment on a project, or running equipment with sometimes surgical aptitude, he was always confident with his ability to think around a problem.  …and as all ladies know, ability and confidence is sexy in a man.  Shawn had it in spades as far as I was concerned.  But… he was also fun.

We never slipped into the middle class coma of work, sleep, eat, save for retirement in Florida.  There were motorcycles and snowmobiles, demolition derbies and truck pulls, quads and hot rods.  There were boats, pick-up trucks and drag races and endless, endless dump trucks.  Shawn was never going to grow old like everyone else. He knew it and so did I.  As a society we weigh the value or success of a life by how much someone accumulates along the way, whether their profession is esteemed or well compensated or how by long they live, not always by how genuine it is.  Shawn’s personality was polarizing.  He was either loved or hated, and he really didn’t care either way; it was a complete non-issue to him.  Of all the people I have ever known in my life, he was absolutely the most true to himself. He did not present himself to the world as something more than he really was. He was simply on a track to challenge his abilities and his senses, think around problems and stand back from his work with satisfaction.

Things were going pretty good in Shawn Rivers’ life leading up to Tuesday night. He was finally on a good job; a visible job, he was successfully building his reputation as a mechanic and operator and he’d earned his Class A Unrestricted crane license.  Our little house was a project that was coming together well and we had plans to move on to Florida after a few more years of work here. He had finally gotten that big jacked-up red Ford truck that so perfectly embodied his personality. His membership at the boat club was forging new friendships that we really enjoyed. He was getting older- sure.  If you knew him, you would have heard him complain about a myriad of aches and pains earned from a lifetime of daring stunts, but he was on the track anyway that night. I could tell from watching him in the pits, he was in his element and feeling like he was twenty-five again.

I will always imagine him that night in the driver’s seat with track lighting flooding through a dirty windshield, foot to the floor and cranking the wheel with that same devilish look of focus I remember as he brought a field car around the track at home.  When I saw the wreck, I knew instantly this was the moment he was tempting his entire life. The distance to the wreck was impossibly far and I was planning my run through the pits when Danny pulled up to the track gate in the tow truck looking for me.

We run the line somewhere between recklessness and responsibility when we live this life; bikes on the open road, snowmobiles on the trail, dirt tracks and burn outs – it’s who we are.  The exhilarating feeling of speed or the challenge of building and handling a car is something we embrace with vigor. It can’t be explained, only understood.  I will never understand what serendipity brought Danny to the gate just as I was trying to get through security, but I will be eternally indebted to him for bringing me to Shawn one last time.

I knew. Riding in the back of Eleanor’s car to the hospital and heading away from where my husband was fading off, I gradually calmed my spinning mind and refocused.  As I was racing west, I knew he was rolling the throttle back on a Victory Jackpot and riding north up into Daytona once more. The sun would rise again over the water come morning and I think, we both knew, that in spite of everything –  it was all going to be okay.