No kid is ever supposed to watch their parents gunned down in the street
in front of them. But that’s what
my brother and I witnessed, ten years ago.
We witnessed the deaths of our parents right in front of our eyes.
Losing a parent is never easy. But
when you’re thirteen at the time, it’s that much harder.
We had always tried to prepare ourselves in case something happened to my
father, Detective Johnathon Andrew McConaway, in the line of duty -- I mean, he
was a cop. You’ve always got to
prepare yourself for loss when there’s a cop in the family.
We never expected to lose my mother, a paramedic, as well.
I mean, if she’d been a fireman, like my uncle Peter, we would’ve
been prepared to lose her. But we weren’t.
To lose both in a heartbeat was never something my brother and I should
have had to face.
After my parents died, our uncle, my father’s younger brother,
Christopher Michael McConaway, who’s run Kyler Incorporated ever since the
death of my grandfather -- his father -- fifteen years ago.
My dad should’ve taken control of the business, but he never wanted it. He wanted to help people, and not in the way that Kyler does.
After high school, my brother Timothy went off to the Air Force Academy.
I haven’t heard from him in five years.
I originally went to University of Chicago to study business, believing
that I would be the one to follow my uncle in the CEO’s chair of Kyler, Inc.
After all, Tim and I are all he’s got now, and at 35, he doesn’t seem
to be too inclined to date anymore. He
hasn’t really dated much in the past ten years.
As I got older, I started asking him why.
He always said that he was content to raise Tim and I and live quietly,
secure in the knowledge that the family would live on in his brother’s
children. He and Dad were close.
I do
blame my father for the path I’ve taken.
If he and I hadn’t watched one too many documentaries on Egypt, or if
the dog hadn’t been named Indiana, I probably wouldn’t have changed my major
halfway through my freshman year at Chicago.
I wouldn’t have gone on to get my PhD in Archaeology and Egyptology
from London University right out of college.
I wouldn’t be the woman I am today.
Then
again, I start to wonder, if I’d actually been able to get married and
everything like my fiancé and I wanted, I probably wouldn’t be doing
fieldwork today -- I’d be teaching, or I’d be writing books and doing
research, not running dig sites. If
I hadn’t lost Matt, I’d probably be a happier person.
I don’t know. It’s not
that I don’t love my life -- I really do -- but it hurts to think about
everything I don’t have because of fate, chance, and circumstance.
Sometimes
I wish things had been different. But
I know that all I can do now is forge on and hope that the aces up my sleeves
amount to something.
I mean...I can always hope for a letter from Tim, or a telegram from the
Navy saying that my pilot is alive, right?
Name: Alisa Jane "AJ" McConaway
Age: 23
Hair: Dark brown
Eyes: Green-blue
DOB: April 26
Hometown: Chicago, IL, USA
Current Residence: Chicago, IL, USA and Al Jizah, Egypt
Occupation: Archaeologist and Egyptologist
Family:
McConaway,
Detective Johnathon Andrew - father (deceased)
McConaway,
Lieutenant Elizabeth Ann Cade, EMT - mother (deceased)
McConaway,
Timothy Michael, USAF - brother
McConaway,
Christopher Michael - uncle
O’Brien,
Lieutenant Commander Matthew Isaac, USN - fiancé (MIA, presumed deceased)
Cade,
Captain Peter Thomas, Firefighter - uncle