Friction
Aaron Baird
We expected icy, snowy conditions for the entire trip, but were pleasantly surprised at the initial presence of nice, dry pavement. It was cold, as it always was on early spring mornings in the mountains of Colorado. The weather wasn't perfect (the small patches of fog were definitely abnormal), but we had successfully driven over Monarch Pass without incident and it was supposed to be smooth sailing after that. We had driven this way countless times before and it had always been a little nerve-racking at first, but mostly uneventful for the majority of the trip. The pattern was always the same: white-knuckle driving over the snow-packed, icy, hairpin curves of Monarch, then tension-releasing laughter at the bottom. The rest of the trip should have been uneventful, even boring.
We were well beyond Monarch and into the gently sloping turns of the road between Salida and Castle Rock when we approached the slightly uphill turn at mile marker 218 of Highway 50. Trevor was sleeping, resting his head against the window, trying hard not to jerk himself awake each time his head sunk towards the front seat. My sister didn’t seem tired of driving, but the anxiety of returning home to a controlling husband, frustrated with how long she had been gone, must have been silently, unconsciously eating at her. She was too quiet, too focused. Ethan quickly became agitated. He was hungry. Had that much time passed already? I was doing my best to console him, especially because Trevor and Seth were sleeping, but nothing worked. He squirmed, arched his back, and the commotion caused Trevor to sigh, in his sleep, and to try to turn away.
Initially, it was just a gentle, curious sense of not traveling in the right direction that tipped us off. The road in front of us was drifting away, ever so slightly. I guess that is what surprised me the most. Car accidents are supposed to be violent, noisy reactions between opposing forces, but we simply glided into the oncoming lane.
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Maybe my dad resented having to share the love and attention of my mom with me. But, if anybody had a right to be resentful, it was me. I was there first and was only two years old when he came into our lives. He was the one who acted like the toddler, though, and his jealously was repeatedly directed at me, even well into my adulthood. When my mother's wistful looks searched for me, her greatest love, her baby girl, he competed. He competed as a jealous lover in second place vying for the coveted position at her side. But, this didn’t need to be a competition. My mom loved us both. Aren’t adults supposed to understand compromise and handle difficult situations with wisdom and poise?
I can't say that I always handled his misdirected jealously as maturely as I could. I kicked and screamed when I was younger, borrowed and crashed his car when I was older. In a moment of maturity, or maybe weakness, I kindly allowed him to walk me down the aisle at my wedding, but the peace offering went unnoticed. Was it really his right to walk me down the aisle just because he had fed and clothed me? My mom worked, too; he wasn’t the only provider in the household. I just wanted the abrasiveness to disappear, I wanted the true love and pride of a father enamored with the joys of fatherhood; but I wasn't willing to compromise my rightful share of my mother's attention, and neither was he.
It took much too long and it shouldn't have taken a tragedy, but a heart-attack and 26 years after we first met, I got my wish. The friction between us melted away as we shared a tender moment when he awoke from surgery. His grateful look and genuine smile marked the end of a 26 year-long war.
We had panicked and rushed home when we had found out about him passing out on the bathroom floor, only to be discovered by my frenzied, disbelieving mother—certain that her husband was dead or dying. But, he didn't die. He was resilient, strong, stubborn, and recovering quite nicely. He took my hand in his, just as he was waking up from the gift of slumber provided by the anesthesiologist, and gave me the reassuring and loving look I had desperately wanted from him for my entire life. His stern exterior crumbed before me as he silently expressed his gratitude for my presence and his state of disrepair broke my heart. Just as his heart was healing, the wounds of our past were healing too, and my feelings of helplessness gave way to hope—the hope that he would still live a long life, not cut short by the failings of a slightly more than middle-aged heart.
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We left early the morning after dad returned home from surgery, even before light started peaking over the high mountains. Ethan didn’t even cry as I put him in the car seat. Either the cold air had put him into a state of mild hypothermia or, more likely, it was just too early in the morning for a 21-month old to be awake. He did stir a little, but his incoherent moans quickly faded into dreamland as the comforting air from the heaters gradually warmed our thickly frosted SUV.
Yes, I was torn between nursing my dad back to health (and building upon our newly forming relationship) and returning to my own routines and responsibilities. But, isn’t that life? Never knowing quite sure which path to take and only realizing in hindsight what would have been best. My husband, Aaron, was probably running out of leftovers by now and was likely already well into the microwave dinners. Maybe Ethan would sleep a little better at night if he was back in his own bed? And, even though my life-long prayers had been answered, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of my step-dad’s recent fondness of me. Skepticism was creeping in. Was he just taking advantage of the fact that I was a nurse who, conveniently, could nurse him back to health all-the-while succumbing to his short-term pretense of tearing down walls and correcting his mistakes of the past?
I didn’t know, but I did know that I had to work that night and I wasn't the only one getting antsy about getting back to routine life. My sister had to get back to Castle Rock, back to her bitch of a husband (I say bitch because dick would make him sound manly, but he was really just an angry child inside of a strange looking body who routinely told my sister that she was worthless and constantly reminded my nephew, Trevor, to stay out of the way of the "grown-ups" or else—that person doesn't deserve the respect of being called a dick). And, my brother, Seth, was anxious to return to his missed college classes—at least to attempt to catch up.
We drove away, crunching the frozen snow in the driveway underneath the tires, still rubbing our cold hands and sleepy eyes. The familiar thick post fence surrounding the small pasture, the pasture we used to chase each other through as kids, passed by on our left. The barn looked tired and uninviting, but, even though it sagged a bit, it exuded purpose and reliability. We honked our horn at the end of the long snowy driveway to say goodbye to mom and dad, to say goodbye to the warmth we shared as a family dealing with a tragedy together. As we turned onto the surprisingly dry road (especially surprising given that the driveway was still packed with snow), we passed by our mailbox--the mailbox that had stood at the entrance to this land for as long as I could remember.
The mailbox was perched on top of a curiously creative and oddly functional thickly twisted wood post. Maybe this had been dad's way of artistically laying claim to this homestead long before the house was completed. Whatever his early intention, the post had remained a symbol of our land, home, and family. An official name on the mailbox probably made him feel like the head of a household that was under his control. But he probably never even considered the alternate meanings portrayed by an official name representing control sitting atop of a gnarled post representing anything but tradition or paternalism. The post flowed like water from the mailbox, into the ground; turning many corners and following a most curious, folding, twisting path. His subconscious choice of an artistic post may have been perplexing to someone who didn't know our family history, but an apt choice to those of us that quietly understood the facade of desired control sitting atop a potentially unstable structure.
Yes, it was difficult to explain all of the Brady Bunch relationships between step-brothers, half-sisters, and full-siblings in our family and it was even more difficult to explain how the family grew into this twisted mess of relationships. But none of this craziness mattered when we all sat around a holiday table full of turkey, mashed potatoes with noodle gravy on top (strange but delicious), canned cranberries, and laughter. Nor did it matter when we left our humble homestead and made the one hour trek up to the Crested Butte ski area to enjoy the warmth of the bakery in the morning and the pleasures of the mountain for the day. Of course, we disagreed on many things and our disagreements often bubbled to the surface in a not-so-gentle fashion, but bonds are forged from adversity and our bond was strong--on most days. Our family bond was especially strong that day--that is what made it so difficult to leave.
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The silent, floating (almost peaceful) feeling we initially experienced as the car drifted away from its intended path lasted only for a few short moments. And when it ended, it didn't end gradually—it exploded. Glass shattered, metal twisted and contorted under forces much beyond what it was meant to withstand, the air filled with the smell of gasoline and hot metal. As the realization of how my suddenly weightless body would be affected by my inevitable and unyielding return to earth, I focused all of my attention on survival. Desperate gasps of panic, the same desperate gasps that occur when you jump into really cold water that causes a temporary but terrifying disconnect between your lungs and your brain, were all that my shocked lungs would allow. I wanted to breathe normally. I wanted to survive. I wanted to be blankly staring at the next turn in the road; bored with the progression of the trip and anxious to get back home. But, I couldn't breathe—I could only watch the gravity of the events unfolding around me.
I stared at bodies crumpling, bending unnaturally under unrelenting forces. I was comforted by the site of Ethan strapped securely in his car seat, but I was terrified to see my 8-year old nephew, Trevor, colliding with the seat-back in front of him. I desperately wanted to save Trevor; a desperation so powerful that it hurt, but something more powerful must have been calling him away from his fragile, breaking body. The possibility of death was no longer only a possibility.
Most everyone who has had a near death experience speaks of “flashing-back”, back to everything ever experienced in life, regretting all of things that could have been done, should have been done, or shouldn't have been done. Maybe Trevor's experience was different than mine, he was so young, but, then again, he didn't have much to look back on. My eyes closed, blocking out the violence, and focused, with great earnest and clarity, not on my past, not on regret, not on still-frames of my friends and family over the last 28 years, but instead on the possibilities of a post-car-accident future. In those fleeting moments, I envisioned the aftermath of surviving this tragedy.
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My vision is cloudy and I feel sick to my stomach. A few blinks barely clear the fog, but the pain is getting intense.
“Blood pressure is erratic… losing blood… hospital still 20 minutes away.”
I am shaking. Shaking so hard that they hold me down.
Flashes of familiar objects—blood pressure cuffs, stethoscopes, IV bags. Flashes of unfamiliar objects—monitors, knobs, cords, tubes flowing with fluids.
A moment of clarity. I see a panicked, but extremely focused face look directly into my eyes. A bright light flashes and is quickly removed. I see his face for another brief moment. Another bright light. I want to squint, I want to block the light--it hurts. He turns his head away, towards the beeping and flashing machines.
Darkness. I still hear the voices, though,
“ETA 5 minutes… directly to the OR…”
The pain slips away. I feel calm. I drift away. The sunrise is beautiful. I love the mountains this time of year. It’s cold, but the air is so crisp and clear. I must be asleep.
More blinking, more cloudy vision, no sound.
“Kelly? Kelly?” I finally hear. I can’t make out the faces.
“Don’t move too much,” a firm but friendly voice instructs.
Why not? I think to myself.
“Can you hear me?”
“Turn down the lights,” I reply, “I can’t focus.”
“Just give it time,” she says.
I give it time. I give it plenty of time. My vision clears. I look down at my motionless legs and feet. After a few more blinks, I don’t want to be awake anymore. My head rests back on the pillow. I don’t speak.
Everything is so sterile. The bag of blood is hanging right next to a bag of saline. Both fluids are slowly making their way into my body through my arm.
My mom is sitting by the window, staring at the cars in the parking lot. She looks over at me and tells me that she is glad that I’m awake. Her smile is motherly, but troubled. I close my eyes.
Darkness. I don’t hear anything. I feel restrained, imprisoned. I want to be free again. The anger creeps up. The frustration is intense. I fade away again.
I am in a gym—at least, it looks like a gym. But, the weights and the fanatic motions of attempts at weight loss and body “sculpting” are missing. I am holding onto two bars, kind-of like the parallel bars in gymnastics at the Olympics. But I am not using the bars to perform, I am using them for stability. I tell my feet to move, but they drag, as if I am stricken with some sort of debilitating disease. Oh, I am in physical therapy. The kind voice behind prods me to keep trying and I am trying, but the motivation is hard to find. This used to be so easy. Learning to walk should be something you experience only once in life, and never remember.
An oddly bright light shines in my eyes and I am no longer holding onto the bars. As the brightness fades a bit, I make out the outline of a window. I grimace, curl my lip in disgust, and look down at my feet instead of looking at the scenery outside. My feet are resting on the metal footrests of a wheelchair. I grasp the wheels and turn towards the wall. The light is not as cleansing as they say it is.
I feel sick to my stomach again. I get up, head to the bathroom, try to force myself to puke up my self-pity, but can’t. I return to the wheelchair, sit down, place my feet back in the footrests, and turn back to the window.
A car drives by. It's going a little faster than it should be for a small neighborhood street. The driver looks a little harried. She is oblivious--probably trying to get home before the milk gets to hot or maybe to get dinner started before her husband gets back from work. She takes too much for granted. She is blissfully unaware of how fortunate she is to be turning the corner without sliding out of control into oncoming traffic.
I imagine myself as her. I would make trips to the store, hurry home to make dinner, and complain about the tiniest difficulties in life.
“The line at the store was horrendous,” I would tell my husband when he got home. “And, I can’t believe they were out of sour cream. How I am supposed to make beef stroganoff without sour cream?”
I want to be her. Her life is simple, complete, and ignorant.
I despise her. She has everything and she doesn’t even know it. I want a semi to turn the corner and crush her car. I want her to go through a year of physical therapy. I want her to sit in a wheelchair for hours on end, even though she can walk again, and seek imaginary vengeance on anyone not in pain. Maybe then she’ll appreciate the fragility of her perfect little life.
My spiteful daydream is cut short when Ethan runs up to me and pleads, “Please, come downstairs and color with me? Grandma sent me a new coloring book with lions on it!," but I just stare back, blankly, ghostly, until he whimpers something about no one ever playing with him.
My husband, Aaron, yells up from downstairs, “He just wanted you to color with him. What is your problem?!”
I’ll tell you what will solve this problem. Vicodin.
The pills go down smooth. An ever so slight smile appears on my face. I slouch in the chair to the point where my head rests on the back. The ceiling looks so white, so pure. I close my eyes and hope to wake up somewhere else.
Sam is tugging at my sweater.
“Time for breakfast, sweetie,” she kindly says to me, and I realize that I am surprisingly hungry. Wow, the bacon really smells good. She helps me down the stairs and I see Ethan and Aaron already sitting at the table. The eggs and bacon are on their plates, Ethan is taking the smallest bites possible without actually eating, and Aaron is trying to tell him to wait for me.
“Wasn’t it nice of Sam to stop by and make us breakfast?,” Aaron comments in a suspiciously pleasant tone without a trace of resentment at me not being the one to cook breakfast.
“Thank you so much, Sam”, I curtly but pleasantly reply.
The bacon tastes wonderful. She cooked it just right. Crispy without that bullshit burnt flavor that happens so often when it is even just slightly overcooked.
Aaron starts to feed Ethan, but Sam stops him.
“I got it,” she says, “just enjoy your breakfast.”
She has tried so hard to have children of her own, but even the doctor's couldn't explain why she never became pregnant. That must be why she is so attentive of Ethan's needs. He represents something she can't have, but desires so strongly.
“Thank you,” Aaron replies, “we really appreciate all of your help.” He looks her right in the eye and smiles affectionately.
Why doesn’t he look at me like that anymore?, I angrily wonder. But, the anger is brief. The bacon is delicious. Ethan says something about how he likes bacon just like me and I smile at him. What a cute kid. I regret not coloring with him.
Sam is mad at me. She is saying something about getting my fucking ass out of the wheelchair and downstairs to play with my son.
What the hell happened to sitting at the table and eating breakfast? Such a strange transition. This is uncomfortable.
“Why the fuck don’t you appreciate what you have?” is all I hear. Her mouth continues to move. Her facial expressions are unlike anything I’ve ever experienced with her. She was always so nice. My heart is racing. I am sweating profusely. Why is she so angry? The door slams and I don’t think she is coming back.
I grab the wheels of my wheelchair, but they are stuck. I clumsily make my way to the window. I look down at the driveway and can just make out her head resting on the steering wheel. She must be crying. Aaron stops her before she backs out. He sticks his head slightly inside of the open window and rests his arms on the door. They must be talking about something. She drives away slowly. He comes inside and says he has to go to the store to get more milk for Ethan. The pretense is laughable. I tell him to take Ethan with him because I need a nap. He doesn’t even kiss me goodbye. I want that last kiss goodbye, but I am dreaming. Reality awaits.
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My fleeting, haunting vision of "recovery" was abruptly cut short as my head tangled violently with the roof of the inverted car. A buckled seat-belt may have changed my fate that morning, but trying to console a frustrated, crying 21-month old while suffocatingly strapped into the backseat was nearly impossible. His cries were tortuous and my seat-belt had to be sacrificed for the return of his peaceful silence and slumber. His cute sleeping expression always brought a smile to my face.
Our Chevy Blazer, normally a very robust SUV, lay crumpled, on its side, unrecognizable, and dripping gasoline. Surprisingly, the air didn't smell of burnt rubber, but maybe that was because of the ice that had guided us into the grill of the semi. My eye lids were heavy, the cold air was no longer noticeable. I stared through a small jagged hole in the shattered and contorted windshield at a small pine cone sitting only yards away, covered in brilliantly glimmering dew crystals. The beauty was striking, almost unnatural.
Were these dew crystals, these reflectors of light, frozen in such a pure, clear, and spherical manner, simply frozen in time, waiting for me to notice their unnerving beauty; or were these reflectors not frozen at all, but rather melting, as if crying, in the sudden appearance of an extreme heat source?
Maybe someone shook my shoulder. Maybe someone yelled to see everyone was okay. Maybe Ethan was screaming in the background. The distance between me and the scene of the tragedy grew further and further. It was spiraling away from me. It seemed so far away. The clarity was disappearing. The fog turned to darkness. All was silent.
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A couple of hours after the accident, before any notifications had been made, Aaron's cell phone vibrated and lit up with the "unknown caller" phrase that always brings with it curiosity and apprehension. The five hour drive that followed from Fort Collins to Salida was filled with angry distress. Seth, from his hospital bed, had only told him to come to a hospital that was five hours away—a hospital tucked into the hills of Colorado and never before visited by Aaron. The nurse had only said that there had been an accident and Ethan needed to be picked up.
Picked up? What was that supposed to mean? he emotionally wondered.
Persistence was no use with her. Aaron's repeated pleas for more information, timid at first but hastily becoming testy, fell on sympathetic but unyielding ears.
"Please come pick up your son," was all she would commit to.
The cell phone was silent after that, but Aaron's hands wouldn't stop trembling. He assumed the worst, but couldn't be sure. The possible scenarios started to play out in his head. Cars sped by, the world was buzzing with activity all around him. He couldn't fathom how such powerful emotions could be affecting him alone.
How could they be so oblivious to what might lie ahead for him when the anguish was so powerful? They should have understood, they should have been there to guide him to the hospital, they should have cleared the way to get him there faster. But, they didn't care. The isolation was unbearable.
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The triage nurse at the front desk simply said, "I am so sorry," and nothing else. The sadness was palpable, eye contact was nonexistent, the elevator doors were slow to open, the hallway was excruciatingly long. Aaron looked past the half open hospital room doors scattered the entire length of the hallway, hiding behind them the glimmering hopes of those recovering, and to the end of the hall where his news awaited him. The scene was surreal, the walls seemed to close in a bit. The end of the hallway stretched a little further into the distance than it had appeared when he first laid eyes on the group people anxiously dreading his arrival. Nurses, who normally would have been very cordial, quickly ducked into patients' rooms in a pretense that contained clear foreshadowing, without the benefit of subtlety. His steps were slow and deliberate, but the possibilities of life, death, and life support played through his mind as all eyes at the end of the hall locked in on his. No emotion was shown, not until Linda, my mom, grabbed his face, looked him in the eyes, and said, "She didn't make it."
The long embrace afterwards was pointless, but reassuring to those who had been dreading his arrival. They wanted to show him love, but his love had been lost. Phrases such as "It's going to be ok", "we are here for you now", and "it must be so difficult, but you will get through this" were empty, hollow, and useless. If they couldn't have been there for him on his agonizingly painful five-hour drive there, why be there now? No one had cared then, not the car next to him, not the happy family exiting the freeway to go to McDonald's, not the police officer sitting on the side of the road.
While the lives of my brother and sister had been saved that day, and Ethan miraculously survived with only minor scratches, my body and Trevor's body had never even left the scene of the accident, at least not in ambulances. We had died before the EMTs could reach us and our final transportation was provided by coroner.
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When the doors of the church opened, a sea of silent and quietly grief stricken faces wanted to look back at those exiting, but instead looked down at the pavement. Beautiful words were uttered, flowers settled into place on the soft ground recently unearthed. A mass of footsteps tread tears into the welcoming earth that day, but the ground was soon hardened and became smooth once again with only the cold silence of two stones as a reminder.
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The screams that are supposed to accompany labor were noticeably absent. Sam was shaking uncontrollably at first and could barely talk as the epidural needle was inserted into the gap between two of her lower vertebrae. The pain subsided shortly thereafter and a small head was soon poking out. The head seemed much too small as she was crowning and the doctor showed signs of worry as her hands became bloodied. The excessive friction of birth required the doctor to do some cutting, but the shrill cries of a new life soon filled a room already flowing with tears. As the sticky, cheesy, white vernix was being rubbed from baby Emma's eyes, the weight of worry and apprehension was angelically lifted from the room. Aaron gingerly forced the blades of the scissors into the cord, just as he had done with Ethan 4 1/2 years earlier, just as any father would do to welcome his newly born child to into his life, and gently kissed Sam on her salty forehead as a suddenly quiet baby was placed on her warm, heaving chest. A curious weightlessness filled a room already brimming with relief and disbelief.
We were well beyond Monarch and into the gently sloping turns of the road between Salida and Castle Rock when we approached the slightly uphill turn at mile marker 218 of Highway 50. Trevor was sleeping, resting his head against the window, trying hard not to jerk himself awake each time his head sunk towards the front seat. My sister didn’t seem tired of driving, but the anxiety of returning home to a controlling husband, frustrated with how long she had been gone, must have been silently, unconsciously eating at her. She was too quiet, too focused. Ethan quickly became agitated. He was hungry. Had that much time passed already? I was doing my best to console him, especially because Trevor and Seth were sleeping, but nothing worked. He squirmed, arched his back, and the commotion caused Trevor to sigh, in his sleep, and to try to turn away.
Initially, it was just a gentle, curious sense of not traveling in the right direction that tipped us off. The road in front of us was drifting away, ever so slightly. I guess that is what surprised me the most. Car accidents are supposed to be violent, noisy reactions between opposing forces, but we simply glided into the oncoming lane.
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Maybe my dad resented having to share the love and attention of my mom with me. But, if anybody had a right to be resentful, it was me. I was there first and was only two years old when he came into our lives. He was the one who acted like the toddler, though, and his jealously was repeatedly directed at me, even well into my adulthood. When my mother's wistful looks searched for me, her greatest love, her baby girl, he competed. He competed as a jealous lover in second place vying for the coveted position at her side. But, this didn’t need to be a competition. My mom loved us both. Aren’t adults supposed to understand compromise and handle difficult situations with wisdom and poise?
I can't say that I always handled his misdirected jealously as maturely as I could. I kicked and screamed when I was younger, borrowed and crashed his car when I was older. In a moment of maturity, or maybe weakness, I kindly allowed him to walk me down the aisle at my wedding, but the peace offering went unnoticed. Was it really his right to walk me down the aisle just because he had fed and clothed me? My mom worked, too; he wasn’t the only provider in the household. I just wanted the abrasiveness to disappear, I wanted the true love and pride of a father enamored with the joys of fatherhood; but I wasn't willing to compromise my rightful share of my mother's attention, and neither was he.
It took much too long and it shouldn't have taken a tragedy, but a heart-attack and 26 years after we first met, I got my wish. The friction between us melted away as we shared a tender moment when he awoke from surgery. His grateful look and genuine smile marked the end of a 26 year-long war.
We had panicked and rushed home when we had found out about him passing out on the bathroom floor, only to be discovered by my frenzied, disbelieving mother—certain that her husband was dead or dying. But, he didn't die. He was resilient, strong, stubborn, and recovering quite nicely. He took my hand in his, just as he was waking up from the gift of slumber provided by the anesthesiologist, and gave me the reassuring and loving look I had desperately wanted from him for my entire life. His stern exterior crumbed before me as he silently expressed his gratitude for my presence and his state of disrepair broke my heart. Just as his heart was healing, the wounds of our past were healing too, and my feelings of helplessness gave way to hope—the hope that he would still live a long life, not cut short by the failings of a slightly more than middle-aged heart.
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We left early the morning after dad returned home from surgery, even before light started peaking over the high mountains. Ethan didn’t even cry as I put him in the car seat. Either the cold air had put him into a state of mild hypothermia or, more likely, it was just too early in the morning for a 21-month old to be awake. He did stir a little, but his incoherent moans quickly faded into dreamland as the comforting air from the heaters gradually warmed our thickly frosted SUV.
Yes, I was torn between nursing my dad back to health (and building upon our newly forming relationship) and returning to my own routines and responsibilities. But, isn’t that life? Never knowing quite sure which path to take and only realizing in hindsight what would have been best. My husband, Aaron, was probably running out of leftovers by now and was likely already well into the microwave dinners. Maybe Ethan would sleep a little better at night if he was back in his own bed? And, even though my life-long prayers had been answered, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of my step-dad’s recent fondness of me. Skepticism was creeping in. Was he just taking advantage of the fact that I was a nurse who, conveniently, could nurse him back to health all-the-while succumbing to his short-term pretense of tearing down walls and correcting his mistakes of the past?
I didn’t know, but I did know that I had to work that night and I wasn't the only one getting antsy about getting back to routine life. My sister had to get back to Castle Rock, back to her bitch of a husband (I say bitch because dick would make him sound manly, but he was really just an angry child inside of a strange looking body who routinely told my sister that she was worthless and constantly reminded my nephew, Trevor, to stay out of the way of the "grown-ups" or else—that person doesn't deserve the respect of being called a dick). And, my brother, Seth, was anxious to return to his missed college classes—at least to attempt to catch up.
We drove away, crunching the frozen snow in the driveway underneath the tires, still rubbing our cold hands and sleepy eyes. The familiar thick post fence surrounding the small pasture, the pasture we used to chase each other through as kids, passed by on our left. The barn looked tired and uninviting, but, even though it sagged a bit, it exuded purpose and reliability. We honked our horn at the end of the long snowy driveway to say goodbye to mom and dad, to say goodbye to the warmth we shared as a family dealing with a tragedy together. As we turned onto the surprisingly dry road (especially surprising given that the driveway was still packed with snow), we passed by our mailbox--the mailbox that had stood at the entrance to this land for as long as I could remember.
The mailbox was perched on top of a curiously creative and oddly functional thickly twisted wood post. Maybe this had been dad's way of artistically laying claim to this homestead long before the house was completed. Whatever his early intention, the post had remained a symbol of our land, home, and family. An official name on the mailbox probably made him feel like the head of a household that was under his control. But he probably never even considered the alternate meanings portrayed by an official name representing control sitting atop of a gnarled post representing anything but tradition or paternalism. The post flowed like water from the mailbox, into the ground; turning many corners and following a most curious, folding, twisting path. His subconscious choice of an artistic post may have been perplexing to someone who didn't know our family history, but an apt choice to those of us that quietly understood the facade of desired control sitting atop a potentially unstable structure.
Yes, it was difficult to explain all of the Brady Bunch relationships between step-brothers, half-sisters, and full-siblings in our family and it was even more difficult to explain how the family grew into this twisted mess of relationships. But none of this craziness mattered when we all sat around a holiday table full of turkey, mashed potatoes with noodle gravy on top (strange but delicious), canned cranberries, and laughter. Nor did it matter when we left our humble homestead and made the one hour trek up to the Crested Butte ski area to enjoy the warmth of the bakery in the morning and the pleasures of the mountain for the day. Of course, we disagreed on many things and our disagreements often bubbled to the surface in a not-so-gentle fashion, but bonds are forged from adversity and our bond was strong--on most days. Our family bond was especially strong that day--that is what made it so difficult to leave.
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The silent, floating (almost peaceful) feeling we initially experienced as the car drifted away from its intended path lasted only for a few short moments. And when it ended, it didn't end gradually—it exploded. Glass shattered, metal twisted and contorted under forces much beyond what it was meant to withstand, the air filled with the smell of gasoline and hot metal. As the realization of how my suddenly weightless body would be affected by my inevitable and unyielding return to earth, I focused all of my attention on survival. Desperate gasps of panic, the same desperate gasps that occur when you jump into really cold water that causes a temporary but terrifying disconnect between your lungs and your brain, were all that my shocked lungs would allow. I wanted to breathe normally. I wanted to survive. I wanted to be blankly staring at the next turn in the road; bored with the progression of the trip and anxious to get back home. But, I couldn't breathe—I could only watch the gravity of the events unfolding around me.
I stared at bodies crumpling, bending unnaturally under unrelenting forces. I was comforted by the site of Ethan strapped securely in his car seat, but I was terrified to see my 8-year old nephew, Trevor, colliding with the seat-back in front of him. I desperately wanted to save Trevor; a desperation so powerful that it hurt, but something more powerful must have been calling him away from his fragile, breaking body. The possibility of death was no longer only a possibility.
Most everyone who has had a near death experience speaks of “flashing-back”, back to everything ever experienced in life, regretting all of things that could have been done, should have been done, or shouldn't have been done. Maybe Trevor's experience was different than mine, he was so young, but, then again, he didn't have much to look back on. My eyes closed, blocking out the violence, and focused, with great earnest and clarity, not on my past, not on regret, not on still-frames of my friends and family over the last 28 years, but instead on the possibilities of a post-car-accident future. In those fleeting moments, I envisioned the aftermath of surviving this tragedy.
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My vision is cloudy and I feel sick to my stomach. A few blinks barely clear the fog, but the pain is getting intense.
“Blood pressure is erratic… losing blood… hospital still 20 minutes away.”
I am shaking. Shaking so hard that they hold me down.
Flashes of familiar objects—blood pressure cuffs, stethoscopes, IV bags. Flashes of unfamiliar objects—monitors, knobs, cords, tubes flowing with fluids.
A moment of clarity. I see a panicked, but extremely focused face look directly into my eyes. A bright light flashes and is quickly removed. I see his face for another brief moment. Another bright light. I want to squint, I want to block the light--it hurts. He turns his head away, towards the beeping and flashing machines.
Darkness. I still hear the voices, though,
“ETA 5 minutes… directly to the OR…”
The pain slips away. I feel calm. I drift away. The sunrise is beautiful. I love the mountains this time of year. It’s cold, but the air is so crisp and clear. I must be asleep.
More blinking, more cloudy vision, no sound.
“Kelly? Kelly?” I finally hear. I can’t make out the faces.
“Don’t move too much,” a firm but friendly voice instructs.
Why not? I think to myself.
“Can you hear me?”
“Turn down the lights,” I reply, “I can’t focus.”
“Just give it time,” she says.
I give it time. I give it plenty of time. My vision clears. I look down at my motionless legs and feet. After a few more blinks, I don’t want to be awake anymore. My head rests back on the pillow. I don’t speak.
Everything is so sterile. The bag of blood is hanging right next to a bag of saline. Both fluids are slowly making their way into my body through my arm.
My mom is sitting by the window, staring at the cars in the parking lot. She looks over at me and tells me that she is glad that I’m awake. Her smile is motherly, but troubled. I close my eyes.
Darkness. I don’t hear anything. I feel restrained, imprisoned. I want to be free again. The anger creeps up. The frustration is intense. I fade away again.
I am in a gym—at least, it looks like a gym. But, the weights and the fanatic motions of attempts at weight loss and body “sculpting” are missing. I am holding onto two bars, kind-of like the parallel bars in gymnastics at the Olympics. But I am not using the bars to perform, I am using them for stability. I tell my feet to move, but they drag, as if I am stricken with some sort of debilitating disease. Oh, I am in physical therapy. The kind voice behind prods me to keep trying and I am trying, but the motivation is hard to find. This used to be so easy. Learning to walk should be something you experience only once in life, and never remember.
An oddly bright light shines in my eyes and I am no longer holding onto the bars. As the brightness fades a bit, I make out the outline of a window. I grimace, curl my lip in disgust, and look down at my feet instead of looking at the scenery outside. My feet are resting on the metal footrests of a wheelchair. I grasp the wheels and turn towards the wall. The light is not as cleansing as they say it is.
I feel sick to my stomach again. I get up, head to the bathroom, try to force myself to puke up my self-pity, but can’t. I return to the wheelchair, sit down, place my feet back in the footrests, and turn back to the window.
A car drives by. It's going a little faster than it should be for a small neighborhood street. The driver looks a little harried. She is oblivious--probably trying to get home before the milk gets to hot or maybe to get dinner started before her husband gets back from work. She takes too much for granted. She is blissfully unaware of how fortunate she is to be turning the corner without sliding out of control into oncoming traffic.
I imagine myself as her. I would make trips to the store, hurry home to make dinner, and complain about the tiniest difficulties in life.
“The line at the store was horrendous,” I would tell my husband when he got home. “And, I can’t believe they were out of sour cream. How I am supposed to make beef stroganoff without sour cream?”
I want to be her. Her life is simple, complete, and ignorant.
I despise her. She has everything and she doesn’t even know it. I want a semi to turn the corner and crush her car. I want her to go through a year of physical therapy. I want her to sit in a wheelchair for hours on end, even though she can walk again, and seek imaginary vengeance on anyone not in pain. Maybe then she’ll appreciate the fragility of her perfect little life.
My spiteful daydream is cut short when Ethan runs up to me and pleads, “Please, come downstairs and color with me? Grandma sent me a new coloring book with lions on it!," but I just stare back, blankly, ghostly, until he whimpers something about no one ever playing with him.
My husband, Aaron, yells up from downstairs, “He just wanted you to color with him. What is your problem?!”
I’ll tell you what will solve this problem. Vicodin.
The pills go down smooth. An ever so slight smile appears on my face. I slouch in the chair to the point where my head rests on the back. The ceiling looks so white, so pure. I close my eyes and hope to wake up somewhere else.
Sam is tugging at my sweater.
“Time for breakfast, sweetie,” she kindly says to me, and I realize that I am surprisingly hungry. Wow, the bacon really smells good. She helps me down the stairs and I see Ethan and Aaron already sitting at the table. The eggs and bacon are on their plates, Ethan is taking the smallest bites possible without actually eating, and Aaron is trying to tell him to wait for me.
“Wasn’t it nice of Sam to stop by and make us breakfast?,” Aaron comments in a suspiciously pleasant tone without a trace of resentment at me not being the one to cook breakfast.
“Thank you so much, Sam”, I curtly but pleasantly reply.
The bacon tastes wonderful. She cooked it just right. Crispy without that bullshit burnt flavor that happens so often when it is even just slightly overcooked.
Aaron starts to feed Ethan, but Sam stops him.
“I got it,” she says, “just enjoy your breakfast.”
She has tried so hard to have children of her own, but even the doctor's couldn't explain why she never became pregnant. That must be why she is so attentive of Ethan's needs. He represents something she can't have, but desires so strongly.
“Thank you,” Aaron replies, “we really appreciate all of your help.” He looks her right in the eye and smiles affectionately.
Why doesn’t he look at me like that anymore?, I angrily wonder. But, the anger is brief. The bacon is delicious. Ethan says something about how he likes bacon just like me and I smile at him. What a cute kid. I regret not coloring with him.
Sam is mad at me. She is saying something about getting my fucking ass out of the wheelchair and downstairs to play with my son.
What the hell happened to sitting at the table and eating breakfast? Such a strange transition. This is uncomfortable.
“Why the fuck don’t you appreciate what you have?” is all I hear. Her mouth continues to move. Her facial expressions are unlike anything I’ve ever experienced with her. She was always so nice. My heart is racing. I am sweating profusely. Why is she so angry? The door slams and I don’t think she is coming back.
I grab the wheels of my wheelchair, but they are stuck. I clumsily make my way to the window. I look down at the driveway and can just make out her head resting on the steering wheel. She must be crying. Aaron stops her before she backs out. He sticks his head slightly inside of the open window and rests his arms on the door. They must be talking about something. She drives away slowly. He comes inside and says he has to go to the store to get more milk for Ethan. The pretense is laughable. I tell him to take Ethan with him because I need a nap. He doesn’t even kiss me goodbye. I want that last kiss goodbye, but I am dreaming. Reality awaits.
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My fleeting, haunting vision of "recovery" was abruptly cut short as my head tangled violently with the roof of the inverted car. A buckled seat-belt may have changed my fate that morning, but trying to console a frustrated, crying 21-month old while suffocatingly strapped into the backseat was nearly impossible. His cries were tortuous and my seat-belt had to be sacrificed for the return of his peaceful silence and slumber. His cute sleeping expression always brought a smile to my face.
Our Chevy Blazer, normally a very robust SUV, lay crumpled, on its side, unrecognizable, and dripping gasoline. Surprisingly, the air didn't smell of burnt rubber, but maybe that was because of the ice that had guided us into the grill of the semi. My eye lids were heavy, the cold air was no longer noticeable. I stared through a small jagged hole in the shattered and contorted windshield at a small pine cone sitting only yards away, covered in brilliantly glimmering dew crystals. The beauty was striking, almost unnatural.
Were these dew crystals, these reflectors of light, frozen in such a pure, clear, and spherical manner, simply frozen in time, waiting for me to notice their unnerving beauty; or were these reflectors not frozen at all, but rather melting, as if crying, in the sudden appearance of an extreme heat source?
Maybe someone shook my shoulder. Maybe someone yelled to see everyone was okay. Maybe Ethan was screaming in the background. The distance between me and the scene of the tragedy grew further and further. It was spiraling away from me. It seemed so far away. The clarity was disappearing. The fog turned to darkness. All was silent.
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A couple of hours after the accident, before any notifications had been made, Aaron's cell phone vibrated and lit up with the "unknown caller" phrase that always brings with it curiosity and apprehension. The five hour drive that followed from Fort Collins to Salida was filled with angry distress. Seth, from his hospital bed, had only told him to come to a hospital that was five hours away—a hospital tucked into the hills of Colorado and never before visited by Aaron. The nurse had only said that there had been an accident and Ethan needed to be picked up.
Picked up? What was that supposed to mean? he emotionally wondered.
Persistence was no use with her. Aaron's repeated pleas for more information, timid at first but hastily becoming testy, fell on sympathetic but unyielding ears.
"Please come pick up your son," was all she would commit to.
The cell phone was silent after that, but Aaron's hands wouldn't stop trembling. He assumed the worst, but couldn't be sure. The possible scenarios started to play out in his head. Cars sped by, the world was buzzing with activity all around him. He couldn't fathom how such powerful emotions could be affecting him alone.
How could they be so oblivious to what might lie ahead for him when the anguish was so powerful? They should have understood, they should have been there to guide him to the hospital, they should have cleared the way to get him there faster. But, they didn't care. The isolation was unbearable.
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The triage nurse at the front desk simply said, "I am so sorry," and nothing else. The sadness was palpable, eye contact was nonexistent, the elevator doors were slow to open, the hallway was excruciatingly long. Aaron looked past the half open hospital room doors scattered the entire length of the hallway, hiding behind them the glimmering hopes of those recovering, and to the end of the hall where his news awaited him. The scene was surreal, the walls seemed to close in a bit. The end of the hallway stretched a little further into the distance than it had appeared when he first laid eyes on the group people anxiously dreading his arrival. Nurses, who normally would have been very cordial, quickly ducked into patients' rooms in a pretense that contained clear foreshadowing, without the benefit of subtlety. His steps were slow and deliberate, but the possibilities of life, death, and life support played through his mind as all eyes at the end of the hall locked in on his. No emotion was shown, not until Linda, my mom, grabbed his face, looked him in the eyes, and said, "She didn't make it."
The long embrace afterwards was pointless, but reassuring to those who had been dreading his arrival. They wanted to show him love, but his love had been lost. Phrases such as "It's going to be ok", "we are here for you now", and "it must be so difficult, but you will get through this" were empty, hollow, and useless. If they couldn't have been there for him on his agonizingly painful five-hour drive there, why be there now? No one had cared then, not the car next to him, not the happy family exiting the freeway to go to McDonald's, not the police officer sitting on the side of the road.
While the lives of my brother and sister had been saved that day, and Ethan miraculously survived with only minor scratches, my body and Trevor's body had never even left the scene of the accident, at least not in ambulances. We had died before the EMTs could reach us and our final transportation was provided by coroner.
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When the doors of the church opened, a sea of silent and quietly grief stricken faces wanted to look back at those exiting, but instead looked down at the pavement. Beautiful words were uttered, flowers settled into place on the soft ground recently unearthed. A mass of footsteps tread tears into the welcoming earth that day, but the ground was soon hardened and became smooth once again with only the cold silence of two stones as a reminder.
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The screams that are supposed to accompany labor were noticeably absent. Sam was shaking uncontrollably at first and could barely talk as the epidural needle was inserted into the gap between two of her lower vertebrae. The pain subsided shortly thereafter and a small head was soon poking out. The head seemed much too small as she was crowning and the doctor showed signs of worry as her hands became bloodied. The excessive friction of birth required the doctor to do some cutting, but the shrill cries of a new life soon filled a room already flowing with tears. As the sticky, cheesy, white vernix was being rubbed from baby Emma's eyes, the weight of worry and apprehension was angelically lifted from the room. Aaron gingerly forced the blades of the scissors into the cord, just as he had done with Ethan 4 1/2 years earlier, just as any father would do to welcome his newly born child to into his life, and gently kissed Sam on her salty forehead as a suddenly quiet baby was placed on her warm, heaving chest. A curious weightlessness filled a room already brimming with relief and disbelief.
