Capturing Death

That mount you put on your helmet to hold the go pro, so you could record your trips flying in the sky? What it captured the very last time it was ever used. It recorded that which was the moment you went from flying to falling. That transition from life to death. 

It captured every moment of the crash; the fall and the sad reality of the aftermath of that fall. The moment of time is so simply recorded and yet when I watch that, I find a pit in my stomach. I have a knowing of how impactful that simple moment will have in not just your life forever but also in mine and our kids. 

It was so innocently recorded as if it were just another moment of excitement in life, but it wasn’t just another moment. This moment is a very pivotal moment that changes everything.  The meaning of this moment of footage lives on in my life forever and it does not die.  

It captured those sounds; the thud, your body making the noises an unconscious body does when it’s shutting down. Your go pro recorded that for me to hear.  The sound that footage captured, that will live in my head forever. I experience it every time I see that helmet. 

In the footage of your fall, I hear your body attempting to breathe and the deathly noises that are not what a living person sounds like. These sounds, the eerie sounds of death taking over, are sounds that no one ever wants to hear.

I hear it, shudder, and push it out of my mind. When I hear those echoing sounds in my mind, I have a flash of the memory of me listening to your breathing sounds that first time we watched what happened to you.  As terrible as it is though, it’s better than not knowing.

I heard those sounds as they got more subtle, then subsided. It captured the sights too; the little movements that told us you were not gone yet, but that you had no power to be or do anything about it. That is tragic.  That hurt.  It hurts still.

And thankfully you weren’t awake to know yourself. The go pro continued to record.  It recorded in 17 minute segments, then it would start over.  Each 17 minute segment records the world around your dying, then dead body.  Fifty one (51) minutes of it. 

In that 51 minutes of footage, the go pro continues to capture what it does from what would have been your view on that helmet. It captures nature. That go pro showed me everything that had been. It showed me what had broken my heart. And it shows me again if I look.

In that footage, I watched the ever so slight movements picked up by the go pro camera and how they begin to wane and then finally stop.  The camera became still because you were no longer moving. It took 15 minutes after you crashed for that stillness to happen.

That stillness is what told me that there’s a new life I’d be living. It told me yours was done and that my life with you here was over. What I hear after the stillness, is the background sound of your paramotor still running.  What I see is the sun as it sets in the world and in your life for the last time. 

I see the end to that day captured in light levels. And yet, that day never seems to end for me. The world goes from light to dark and then completely black, strikingly just like your life here on this earth. What’s left is only darkness. Then the battery on the go pro dies, like you. 

Then the video is over.  The proof your life is too.  Your life stopped first, then the video. The go pro showed me all that in the story it just recorded. It’s a video that I had to watch to know, to believe what was true, to know for myself.

The video that showed me my husband wasn’t coming back is also the video that would be viewed by professionals to find answers as to what happened to Grant?  It’s all there in the footage you were so committed to have that you wore a helmet, but not for protection. You wore the helmet mounted with a go pro that didn’t protect you. It is now your video epilogue.