Mom Trapped In Blizzard Writes Heartbreaking Goodbye Letters To Her Daughters

Thinking about death is my least favorite thing in the world. I would prefer to live my life blissfully unaware that it is temporary, but having kids changes that and forces one to confront the idea of one’s own mortality and saying goodbye, as one mother discovered last week when she was buried alive in her car with no way to escape or get help, and nothing to do but write goodbye letters to her daughters.

According to Yahoo Parenting, Karen Rossi was driving home from work during Buffalo, N.Y.’s terrible snowstorms last week when her car got stuck in the snow. Then a snow plow passed and buried the car completely, with Rossi trapped inside.

“I felt like I was underground, buried in a casket,” Rossi said. ”It was surreal. It was just silent for hours. Nobody came. And my phone had died.”

Rossi was trapped in her car for 13 hours, and she did not know how long her car would have enough fuel to run and keep warm. She was able to call her daughters before her phone died, and her 17-year-old told her she had to keep the tailpipe clear or risk carbon monoxide poisoning, so every 90 minutes Rossi would crawl out the window and dig her way to the tail pipe to keep it clear. Then the tunnel would collapse and she’d have to dig it again next time.

Rossi texted her daughters that she loved them, but when her phone ran out of power she still had more to say to them.

”You never think this is the way you’re going to pass away,” she said. “I started to think about my life and my family and my daughters.”

Trapped in the car, Rossi wrote a goodbye letter to each of her daughters. I can’t even imagine having to do that. I’m definitely going to start crying just imagining having to write a letter like that.

Luckily, after 13 hours, Rossi was spotted and rescued. Now that she is safe, though, she said her daughters don’t even want to see the letters. I can understand that. If I were the daughter, I think I wouldn’t want to read them either. It’s more pleasant for a kid to just try to forget that ever happened and go on acting like everybody is immortal. But Rossi says she’s keeping the letters anyway. They’ll want them someday.

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