What is Your Character’s Loss?

A man I used to know only a little used to introduce himself to everyone he met with this story: He was driving from California to Utah because they were moving and he had three children in the car. The youngest child, about 9, was sitting in the front seat. It was dark and the youngest child fell asleep, so he reached over and undid the seatbelt so his son could be more comfortable.

A few minutes later, he fell asleep at the wheel, bumped off the road, rolled the car, and his son was catapulted from the car because he did not have a seatbelt on, and this son died. The man felt so much guilt for his part in the death of his son that he had to tell it to everyone he met, to get a kind of up-front forgiveness or maybe to feel like he wasn’t getting their friendship or kindness unfairly.

I have never forgotten this story, and when I think about creating characters, I often think about what is the story that this character would tell to everyone. What is the deep loss in their past that they cannot forget or forgive themselves for? And are they the kind of person who tells that story again and again or are they the kind that can never speak of it, that buries it deep, hoping without hope that it will go away?