5/2/10 7:42 PM
Today, my dad told me and some company of my mother's car accident which confined her to a forever stiff back and is never able to do strenuous physical activity ever again.
I was four-years-old at the time, and Frankie (my older brother mentioned last post) was about six. My dad usually drove my brother to first grade everyday, but my dad was tired that day, so he asked my mom to do it. He listened to the crunch of gravel as she drove onto the road (we lived next to the church my dad preached at, which had a gravel parking lot, so they just parked their car on the gravel) and, a minute or half later, he heard a loud
CRASH! which prompted him to run outside and look down the road (the way it was built, he could see four hundred yards down). Seeing nothing, he went back inside, thinking it was just his imagination. Minutes later, he got a call from a girl who lived a few hundred yards away, saying, "Frankie's fine, but your wife got in a really bad accident. Come to my house!" He sped over finding not finding only a crumpled car, but a crumpled woman as well. Just a bag of skin and bones, laying about 42 feet away from the destroyed car. (The reason he couldn't see her and the car at first is because it landed in the girl's front yard.) He ran over the people standing next to her and asked, "Why did you lay her here?" They replied, "We didn't lay her here. This is where she landed."
Needless to say, my dad was shocked. However, do you remember my brother, who my mom was driving to school? Imagine what he, a first grader, was thinking! He was asleep when the accident occurred, and when he woke up....no mom. He was totally convinced that our mom died and her body literally went to heaven (he later learns that it doesn't really...work that way). He was taken away in an ambulance while my mom was taken away in a helicopter. He told the people in the ambulance, "Drive me to heaven! That's where my mommy is!" They told him that they were taking him to a hospital to make sure he was really OK, but he repeated himself.
"Take me to heaven. I want to be with mommy."
Also, think about my thoughts! I went to nursery school, and my college-aged cousin took me home. I ran around my house and told my various extended family members who just heard of the accident themselves, "I'm lost! Can you tell me where my parents are?" When they did tell me, I started bawling.
Back to the helicopter. My mom had two tubes connected to her chest, unconscious. When she woke up, she asked my dad, "Honey, where am I?" He replied, "You were in an accident, and you're going to the hospital." As understandment crossed my mom's face, she looked into my dad's eyes and said, "Honey...I love you. " Tears in his eyes, he looked as her heart rate, which was somewhere around 75 or so.
"This is it," he thought,
"She's going to die."At the hospital, they fled her to the ER for tests. Later, they came out and told my dad that she might have a ruptured artery, and they were going to do tests on her to make sure. After the first, they told him that it was suspected. After the second, it was confirmed. They told my dad that things were looking very grim, and that they don't expect her to last very long.
Every visiting hour, through the day and through the night, my dad came to see her without relent. Every time he came to visit, she'd rasp out, "Whahapped?" ("What happened?"), to which he'd reply, "You were in an accident." She'd look down and nod in response. Every time.
Many strenuous days later, a miracle occurred. My dad was told by the doctor that my mom had plasma floating in her abdomen, and THAT was the cause and effect. My mom was going to live!....However, hospital bills and physical therapy didn't exactly make it fit the definition of a "happy ending"
. But no, we were rejoicing!
...Just thought it was an interesting enough story to tell. Makes a heck of a good love story as well.
Later!
Song of the Day: Memories from Cats
Jeez. Well, maybe I'll get it right today...or maybe not. Well, I need to get ready for that, so...
