Give It a Year

It wasn't all that long ago, while driving the kids home from school, that I said a prayer I've said often since our car wreck last year.

Thank you, Father....thank you for keeping Daniel and Gabriella safe.

It was a great blessing, the greatest blessing that Daniel and Gabriella weren't harmed in any way. Though at the time of the accident I recoiled for several moments in disbelief at the noise, the sight and the pain, God knows I'm grateful. I took the brunt of it. Let me always take the brunt of it. Sometimes my thoughts stray into the territory of what could have happened, and I pray my gratitude silently, passionately.

Then cries my soul, my Lord God unto to thee, How great Thou art. How great Thou art.

I think of all the ways in which you provided for us through our fellow human beings.

The firemen took care of our youngest children when I could barely speak or move and was in a very selfish place of pain. My husband came from work instantly and ran across a grassy field toward the intersection at a speed only panic can induce. He barely got to take my hand before I was transported, but he was there to take our littlest two into his arms; they didn't need to go with strangers on the strangest, scariest day of their lives.

Our friends from our little Mom's Group stepped in to help immediately. Kim drove all the way out to the county hospital to take Ella and Danny home with her where she fed them and distracted them with toys, games and TV and made them feel safe. Geraldine picked up Ana and Berto, our eldest, from school, and the two groups united at her house. Dana and her kids showed up, too, and can you believe the miracle of love and friendship? They had a pizza party. My kids had a pizza party with friends on what could have been a disordered, gloomy, really bad day.

My husband called his mom from the hospital when he was a "mess", barely coherent. She drove from Albuquerque early the following morning. Dana watched our kids until she arrived, so that Matthew could spend the morning with me at the hospital, bearing gifts of chocolate and magazines that Dana sent with him.

I don't think I ever thanked my mother-in-law on this blog for taking care of her son and grandkids for five days - the second time she's been there for us in a huge way - or for listening to me talk and cry the evening I came home from the hospital. I thank her now, just as I thank the cheerful firemen, our beautiful, steadfast friends, and my diligent, strong husband for all they did for our children that I could not do for them myself during those early fall days a year ago.



Time and Chance and Gratitude

Short, mostly unedited: Morbid Thoughts

I used my horn this morning. I had to blast it, palm flattened in panic. It was the only way to prevent a large blue truck from impelling me off the road like a scene from some spy movie.

My husband has no problem laying on the horn. I wish I were more like him. I wish I didn't hesitate in so many things.

Because I see a dozen wrecks every day. I gasp. I take deep shuddering breaths that rake my ribs, reminding me of the injuries from my own accident.

The accidents happen only in my mind's eye; by some miracle they don't transpire in reality. This doesn't change the fact that drivers routinely take ridiculous chances.

I know I'm more skittish since our accident. Driving at night I am tense the whole way to my destination. During the day I am distrustful of other drivers, my eyes darting back and forth. I speed up; I go too slow - always in an attempt to avoid a collision. My husband has warned me I'm going to cause one by being overly defensive.

I've had two close ones since that bad day in September. Once a driver whipped out of nowhere in front of me in a parking lot, inches were all that left before the grind of auto on auto. I pulled into a parking space; my legs trembled.

"What happened? What happened?" I asked my son. "Did you see where he came from?"

I had looked, honestly. Really.

And then this morning on the way to school as I cried out to that big intimidating truck that tried to zip across two lanes from the merge lane, "Dear God, don't hit me! Don't hit me..." and the blare of horn. He was crossing my line, and I was going into the shoulder when he righted himself. The trembling didn't subside until I'd sat a while in the parking lot of my daughter's preschool.

It's a strange side effect of the car wreck that I'm now terrified of large trucks. I can picture one t-boning us, the grill impacting my window at eye level, looking annihilation in the face. Monstrous trucks with high cabs and enormous wheels are popular in this country; they're everywhere, and I don't see one without contemplating the damage they could do to smaller, lower vehicles. It terrifies me.

Someone could ask me why I'm not scared of motorcycles? I'm not. I confess the noise of them does bring flashbacks sometimes, but usually when I see motorcycles I just feel very sad. I mourn the death of the man who hit me in late September, still troubled by the circumstances. And when I see a rider that has no helmet, I steam over the foolishness. I read a November interview with a police officer in which he stated that when head meets pavement, pavement wins - every   single   time. Please wear helmets, for the love of yourself. Increase your odds.

Yes, I'm a big baby, but I suppose it's natural to contemplate your mortality after a close call. And shall I share one of my biggest new worries? I worry that if something suddenly happens to me, my kids will read this blog as a way to remain connected to their mother and that they will think I had favorites, speculate that I did not love them equally. That thought is truly terrifying, the idea that my kids would be saddled forever with an impression of my love based on the whim of my words, the chance of my topic choices, the coincidence that I mentioned one of my children by name more than another.

So I'll say it, punching out the words in desperate sincerity: I love my children equally. I adore them. I have no favorites.

Clingy and Depressed...and Moving On

How changeable we humans are!

I have gone from counting my blessings to feeling glum about almost everything since the wreck. Yesterday was the second day I felt utterly exhausted, and I can only guess that my body is sucking up calories, growing new bone to repair my rib fractures.

My follow-up appointment to see my ED/trauma docs was yesterday morning, and I was sad that I wouldn't see them again, that they were cutting me loose to face the world. These skilled people made me feel safe when my sense of safety had been severely compromised. I want to invite them to Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas brunch  - something - but they are near strangers who doubtless wish me the best but have other people, other traumas to heal.

I feel similarly about the nurses, the firefighters, the police, the EMTs. I am one more face in the crowd of traumatic human experiences, but they are more to me. They preserved my health. They took care of my children. They deserve a parade. Or a banquet.


In those first hours at the hospital post-accident, the nurses showered my kids with attention, toys and treats - a new football, a toy car, a Betty Boop doll, popsicles, chocolate milk and crackers. Oh, and a small teddy bear with a red bow that I happen to be sleeping with at the moment. I found him when I came home and christened him Michael. At night when I'm lying in the recliner (the one place where I can sleep comfortably with these ribs), he is tucked under my left arm providing cushion to the sensitive ribs. He helps me not to feel so alone when all my family is down the hall in their beds. I would like to say that this is unusual behavior for me, clinging to a teddy bear, but I have never lost touch with the child within, probably because I'm the youngest of four children.

And maybe this is why I miss our van, our poor totaled van that I used to say had a terrible engine, mediocre brakes and an awful turn radius. Still, I don't believe it deserved what happened to it at all, poor thing. I remember lolling my head side to side in the middle of the intersection, marveling at how horrible it looked with its shattered glass, exposed wires and displaced air vents. I told my husband in the hospital that I didn't want to see it ever again, even if the insurance said it wasn't a total loss. I didn't want the reminder of an unfortunate day.

But now that the insurance has declared it a total loss, I wish I had it back. It was mine, and it was reliable. And I do verily believe there is nothing more depressing than shopping for a new vehicle, nothing to make you feel so desperately mired in commercialism as dealing with salespeople. All our hopes for a good family vehicle seem to be deflated at every turn. There is so much consumer information to struggle through.

But, anyhow, I don't want to drive again as soon as I must. We were out a couple evenings ago looking at minivans and picking up supper, and I was nervous; I despised the traffic. I could not wait to run inside my home when we pulled in our driveway. But starting on Monday, I must drive again come hell or high water. I must attempt not to think about what can happen at any moment, things absolutely beyond my control. I must stop telling my husband repeatedly, "Drive safe! Please be safe. Watch out, I mean it," when he leaves me.

Well, well. I am a normal, changeable human being. The more I drive the less jumpy I'll be. The more time that passes the less clingy I'll be to this teddy bear or to the people who guarded our family's well-being at a crucial time.

Perhaps by writing the dozen and more thank you notes I need to write to family, friends, firemen, police, doctors, nurses, I will learn to let go and move on.

But tell me: what are your best ideas to say thank you to near strangers whose efforts mean so much? I would bake them each a pile of cookies, but I don't know if that's acceptable. Let me have your opinion, please.

Time and Chance...and Gratitude

I had a healing conversation with my parents recently, one in which they let me cry abundantly until my cellphone and ear both felt permanently moistened.

 

It's been almost two weeks since the accident, the first five of those spent in the hospital. I thought I was a trooper while in that cozy, safe hospital bed. I knew my blessings quickly, and I had no anger (unless you count yelling at the officer who told me I actually needed to talk instead of nodding, and I replied, "I...don't...want...to!", or when I scolded the ED nurses and docs for leaving me on a backboard and in a neck brace for what felt like 20 stiff hours). Nevertheless, my rattled emotions have blindsided me since I've come home. Yesterday, I heard a neighbor's motorcycle while my kids and I were in the front yard, and it upset me badly. My children crying, especially my youngest two, has the power to discombobulate me completely.

Ella, my youngest daughter, and Danny Sam, my littlest boy, were with me when a black motorcycle, entering my left line of vision like a torpedo, blew a red light and T-boned our van where the driver's side door hinges September 28th. Suddenly I was looking through a splintered windshield and an emptiness where my driver's side window had been. My sideview mirror was gone, wires dangling like mangled limbs, and my door was bent into my intimate space. Blood warmly dripped down my arm and hand.

The horror of knowing you are where you are in that moment and that there will be consequences to that fabled time and chance that happens to us all is indescribable.

And it was nearly unbearable. I was in physical pain immediately from a collapsed, bruised lung and broken ribs, and I selfishly closed in on myself those first several minutes. But the pain of hearing my children scream and wail for me until the first responders came was more terrible and haunting. I couldn't reassure them; I could barely speak, though I tried to wave my right hand in a calming signal and eventually tried to lift my voice above the cacophony of noise to breath, "I'm okay..."

I knew by their strong voices, their undulating cries, and their confused questions that they were okay and had no idea what had just happened. They were both sitting on the same side of the van as myself, but I don't believe they glimpsed the same black hulk I did before the crash.

They were not hurt, praise God. That would have been unbearable. They were not hurt at all, except for a tiny scrape on my son's thigh that I think he got as the fireman accidentally knocked glass from the window.

There is a part in the book The Walking Flame where the main character Aram must face horrendous environmental conditions. Beings called Astra wrap their enormous wings and strange bodies around him, shield him. I really don't care how it sounds: that is the image that sprang to my mind in the hospital regarding how my kids were protected from harm. Their guardian angels enveloped them.

I suppose people could ask: Well, what about you? You were seriously hurt.

You must have faith to understand. God never left me. He never left us.

He was present in the two kind, sober-faced men who stopped to ask if I was okay, who when I shook my head, responded, "Hang in there. We're going to get someone to help you."

He was present in the firemen who finally comforted and calmed my children, who were cheerful in speaking to them, who gave me a great, extraordinary gift when they got my children to speak back to them, who told my babies their mama was going to be okay, who asked about the teddy bear and doll buckled into the seats of our van. My respect for what those men and women do in traumatic situations is multiplied tremendously. They were sooo calm, so miraculously cheerful, that it comforted me and let me wholeheartedly trust them with my children when I was unable to take care of them myself.

God was present in the policemen who kept me lucid and engaged and speaking, who bent my driver's side door all the way back, so I could be placed on the stretcher. He was present in the EMTs who tended me all the way to the hospital, who were kind despite my extreme grumpiness, who told the ambulance driver to step on it already and put on the lights.

And He was present in my husband who rushed to be with us after I weakly told him on the cellphone that we'd been in an accident - to just come. My Man dashed like Flash Gordon across a long field to get to the scene, was stopped by a female officer, and had to wait in agony for the "all clear" to come see us. He barely got to me in time to grasp my hand and say, "Baby, I'm here...I'm here," before the ambulance took me away. But because he was there so quickly, he was able to take Ella and Daniel into his arms and familiar papa care. They weren't removed from the scene by strangers from Social Services, and I am so glad.

Good things come. I understand now what Job meant when he said of God to his misguided friends, If He kills me, I still trust him.

I've now witnessed the light of God shining brightly through people. And I know what it is, the Peace of Christ, to forgive someone when they have injured you badly and could have hurt your beloved children.

Beloved Betsy: The Wreck and the Empty Parking Space

You always think when you love someone madly that you'll have a funny inexplicable feeling in your gut when something's happened to them, no matter how minor. Well, I didn't. Maybe I have a lazy sixth sense, or maybe it was haywire during my third pregnancy.

Around 7:30am one August morning in 2007, just a few days after My Man's birthday, the telephone rang. I answered immediately, certain it was not a telemarketer at such an hour, thinking perhaps that Matthew needed to tell me he'd forgotten something or that I shouldn't forget to call and make such and such an appointment....

"Hello?"

"Honey, I don't want you to worry," said Matthew's voice. "I've been in a car accident, but I'm fine."

I didn't know how to respond. A swell of emotion and confusion had followed those words: car accident.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Except for some burns on my arm from the airbag."

He briefly told me that Betsy had not fared as well. There had been sudden braking on the freeway, the domino effect as each car attempted to avoid hitting the car in front. Successful attempts ended with the van behind my husband; it slammed into the rear of Matthew's car, propelling it forward under the SUV directly ahead. Betsy's front end folded up like a paper bag, the air bags bloomed and burst, and the chemicals from the airbag left nasty burns on Matthew's arm. The paramedics gave him some ointment for it, but, thankfully, with no casualties or gravely serious injuries, they fled off to the next scene of rush hour catastrophe. Matthew was stranded at the side of a busy highway, wondering how he'd get to work.

Next time I heard from him he had hitched a ride with a police officer to a gas station. He ended our conversation abruptly when he saw an associate from his company. I heard him call the gentleman's name over the noise of car's engines, and then he told me he loved me, and he'd check in later.

The realization of what could have happened and how lucky we were didn't strike just then. I felt as if I was in limbo. Matthew was okay, thank God, but shaken; Betsy was in bad shape. I roamed around the house with no purpose, restlessly waiting for that next phone call, explaining now and then to our two young children that Papa had been in a car accident, but he was alright.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everyone told Matthew he needed to take the day off, go home, and work out all the little details thrust upon a person after a sudden event spins life around on the great roulette table of trouble. Matthew finally conceded; he was already spending most of his time on the phone with our insurance company. So I headed north across town with Berto and Ana to pick him up in our minivan. From there we drove to the tow yard where they'd taken Betsy..

I wasn't prepared to see the wreckage. Couldn't comprehend before hand how I'd feel. After many long moments talking to the individuals at the tow yard providing proof of ownership and figuring out just where they had hauled Betsy to, they opened the gate for us and Matthew slowly drove down the center of a wide, full lot of wrecked vehicles. That's when I was hit with the realization that, as King Solomon said, " time and chance happens to us all". Matthew turned the van between two surreal rows of mangled cars and braked.

"There she is," he said.

She was to our left. I saw her, and the sight of her hit me hard; I finally understood from her sad state just what had occurred that morning while Matthew was inside her. Intercepted by the emotion I'd seen in my periphery all day, my full pregnant body shook with it as I stared at Betsy - bent, maimed, compacted...wrecked.

Matthew got out and opened her driver's side door for the last time, collecting CDs, old key rings, papers...finally her dented license plate. A Journey CD played on my van's radio as I watched him and cried. I was remembering life with Betsy - remembering lunch dates to our favorite Chinese restaurant when Matthew and I were first dating, remembering late night conversations and kissing sessions beneath her sun roof that lay open to the stars as her radio serenaded us, remembering carefree trips to San Antonio's River Walk when we were first married without kids, and recalling longer trips to New Mexico and Idaho when her interior was so crammed with kiddie stuff and luggage and Christmas gifts, there was barely room for us and our kids to move. Though the kids and I had long since moved our mobile selves from Betsy to the roomier minivan, I was remembering our life thus far in that sporty little car and how it had unfolded, and I was mourning her future absence from it.

The kids were troubled by my crying as we waited and also fascinated at seeing Papa's car in this strange form and place, so I tried to explain why I was sad and how immensely grateful I was that Betsy, and not their Papa, had sustained most of the injury.

When Matthew returned to the van, I looked back as we drove away from Betsy until we turned and I could no longer see her, and I knew I wouldn't see her again. I held her battered license plate in my hands.

When we pulled into our driveway at home that afternoon, Matthew laid Betsy to rest so abruptly that I was shocked: instead of going left into the van's usual designated parking space, he purposefully drove right up the middle, partially in the van's space and partly in Betsy's.

"Oh, Matthew..." I said in distress, my voice catching. "Right in the-the middle? That's...not...r-right!"

And then I sobbed.

Matthew had said his goodbye in the wreckage yard, for I was mystified by the calm in his voice when he replied.

"She's gone," he said firmly but gently. "It's time to move on."

And so we have.