Chapter 7 – The Darkest Times

Aug 17 1996 started out as any regular day. It was the summer between my second year and my what was to be my real second year of Journalism.

You see, most of 1996 was not a good year for me with the death of my grandfather and was still reeling over the separation of my parents the previous year. I still vividly remember the morning my grandfather passed away. It was a cold November morning, and my roommate at the time, Disco Dave Wilson had just gotten up. I had been keeping him up to date on the status of how my grandfather was doing over his final days because he showed so much compassion during the whole process.

The way the phone rang that cold sunny morning; we both knew he was gone. Dave picked up the phone, and on the other end was my father who was sobbing. He handed the phone over to me, and before I took it out of his hands, tears had already been running down my face. Needless to say, I wasn’t going to class that day.

I tried to continue on with my course, but because of everything that was going on, I had fallen into a pretty serious depression and could no longer concentrate. I talked the situation over with my journalism instructor Victor as well as the head of Comm Arts, Brenda “Gilda Radner” Bradley and it was agreed that I would be dropping out of journalism. Much to the shagrin of many of my fellow classmates and friends. But in the end, they all understood.

To keep my second-year journalism dreams alive for the following year, I entered myself into a career education course. Basically to test myself to see if I was following the correct career path. I graduated from that program, and was once again accepted into the Journalism program.

That summer, I would take the hour drive north from Fredericton to Woodstock every once in a while to make sure the apartment was alright, and to catch up with some of the people whom I grew close to in my previous two years in the small town.

It was the labor day long weekend. To my surprise, my roomie and best friend Brucie also arrived back in Woodstock later that Saturday, so we called as many people as we could and had a little bash at the pad before heading off to JR’s for an evening of frolicking and fun. There was the usual red neck crowd that night, as well as a few other friends from the college whom we didn’t know had come back to town.

It was getting later in the evening and I had drank a copious amount of liquor, so it was about time for me to hit the shit sack. Nothing in the world would have been able to prepare me for the events that were to follow.

Once I got home, I knew I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep because the lady in the apartment next to us was beating the hell out of her kids and causing quite a racquet in the process. So I turned on the tube and flipped to Canada’s music station, Much Music to see what was on for videos. All I saw was some dumb ass boy band so continued to flip through the channels.

As I was going through the channels, I stopped on CNN and the words I saw plastered on the screen broke my heart into tiny little pieces.

“PRINCESS DIANA AND BOYFRIEND DODI AL-FIAID PRESUMED DEAD AFTER HORRIFIC CAR CRASH IN PARIS”

All I saw was the crumpled remains of the princess’s car, and I knew she was gone. The anchor that night was doing his best to put everyone’s mind at ease saying that although her boyfriend was pronounced dead at the scene, the Princess, although very badly wounded herself, was alert when she was pulled from the wreckage. He wasn't portraying a pretty scene.

For the next couple of hours there I sat, just inches from the television set hoping beyond hope that the Princess would some how find a way to pull through this. Brucie finally arrived back home in his usual jubilant post-bar manner, but it didn’t take him long to figure out what had happened and he took a seat on the couch next to where I was sitting and together we watched the tragedy unfold.

Early reports were saying that the Princess and her wealthy boyfriend, who was the heir to the Harros hotel chain, were spotted leaving their hotel and were on their way to some sort of private function, when they were spotted by the paparazzi. They chased the couples car on motorcycle, and in the process of trying to elude them, the driver of the car crashed into a pillar under a bridge.

Evidently the paparazzi even stuck around to take a few gruesome and tasteless photos of the victims of the crash before heading off. For the next 10 hours or so, I sat glued to CNN hoping beyond hope that the graphic on the bottom of the screen would change from “feared dead” to “recovering in hospital,” but it never came.

Early the next morning the world received the tragic news. Princess Diana had died from her injuries not long after she arrived at the hospital. The normal questions were running through my head, and all those questions seemed to always begin with one simple word. Why?

Why her? Why now? She had done so much for so many people, and even through her divorce from Prince Charles her reputation as a devoted humanitarian and loving mother remained untarnished. Who was going to pay for taking her life? But as it turned out, no one would. The paparazzi was not charged but were found negligent. The driver of the car was found to be intoxicated but no formal charges were pressed. Another precious life taken, with absolutely no consequences.

As a small end note I have to send out a very special thank you to those of you who stood by me in my time of need. This was probably one of the toughest years of my life and you all came through with flying colors. You all know who you are. Like Dok said in a similar story everyone we met during our stay in Woodstock, we were supposed to meet for a reason. And not a day goes by when I don’t thank my lucky stars that all of these people came into my life when they did.