Click here to buy this shirt: https://aaronshirt.com/product/ruby-reid-wearing-she-loves-thed-dallas-texas-t-shirts/ Rationally, my sisters and I understood that sometimes people said or did things that triggered us because they were shocked by the extent of our loss—not just Hart and Ruby, but also our mother, who had died two months before the accident. More than a few people said how lucky she was that she had died and had not had to go through the tragic loss of her grandchildren. But they didn’t know how much we needed her, how much Gail especially needed her, and what many didn’t know was that she had also lost a child, a two-year-old girl named Barbara who died of pneumonia. She knew a thing or two about survival.
After the funeral, we took turns staying with Gail and Colin in their basement apartment, among all the pictures of the kids, listening to them cry at night. We folded laundry, bought groceries, cooked. We often took walks around Silver Lake Reservoir, brainstormed script ideas, and complained about our jobs, our friends, and our weight. Only now, we would focus on the things that bothered us. Specifically, when people said things like the kids were “in a better place.” Some people mentioned psychics who could relay messages to Ruby and Hart from the other