Becoming Aware of Life and Death, Pain & Suffering

The summer I turned 14, my parents along with my aunt and uncle, were involved in a horrific car crash. In a split second, they became the epicenter of a wreck that they all amazingly survived. I remember that night still. In detail. The phone call, the eeriness of the long night and the growing up I did.

At the time, we lived in Grapevine, Texas and my parents had decided to go out to eat with my mom's sister and husband that evening. I stayed home for an evening spent talking on the phone with a friend, reading and starting to feel spooked as the evening became very late and my parents had not come home. Life before cell phones. How did we do it?

Finally, sometime close to midnight, my dad called. He very calmly told me that they had been involved in a "little" accident and were at the hospital. He would soon be home, but mom would need to spend the night. Everything was okay. Nothing to worry about. Right.

When I finally heard the key in the front door, I ran down the stairs to meet my dad and get the real details. (which came slowly in the days ahead, in bits and pieces.) He was moving carefully, and looked very worn and tired. He moved toward the stairs and told me to go on to bed and he would take me to see mom the next day. She apparently injured her leg and the doctor wanted to keep her at the hospital.

I headed to my bedroom on the second floor of our house and Dad went the other direction towards their bedroom but in a couple of minutes called out to me. I entered their room to see Dad standing in front of the bathroom mirror, shirt off and tossed aside. It was then that I saw the blood. Little specks all on the inside of his shirt, in the back. Then I looked at his back and saw dozens of little tiny cuts. In his hand were a pair of tweezers. "Sandi, I need your help. I have some little pieces of glass in my back. Can you pick them out with the tweezers?"
I noticed stitches in his elbow, a result of his left arm going through the drivers side window.

I remember a sick feeling in my stomach, wanting to help, and suddenly feeling more like an adult than a child. Of course, I was the only other one in the house, so he had no one else to turn to. But still. He asked me, and I wanted to rise to the occasion. I moved into the light from the vanity, picked up the tweezers, slowly and meticulously began to remove the little pieces of glass. He winced each time I managed to grab hold of one of them and remove it. I remember the warm feel of his skin, the awareness that he was sweating a little (I was too), and clinging to the edge of the sink. The smell of gasoline, antiseptic used to clean his elbow, mixed with vague remnants of what he usually smelled like- cigarettes and Brut. (this was the 70's, after all!) While Brut and cigarettes may not sound like a fragrant delight to the senses, to me it was my dad. That was the familiar, and it wasn't distasteful to me.

I remember that night of becoming aware of my father's humaness and mortality. He was blood, flesh and bones. Capable of being hurt badly, and as I was to find out the next day, so were my mother, aunt and uncle. I was scared and fought back tears at the realization that they could have died that night. My dad had never been injured like this before, and was very rarely sick. And I do mean rarely. Until then, the most I could remember ever happening to him was getting poison ivy in the summer. He had never spent a night in the hospital, and even after this wreck, he would reach the age of 77 before he ever had to be hospitalized. He was a tough little man.

Finally, I could find no more pieces of glass to grab hold of, and we went off to bed, exhausted-the two of us. It would take months for all of the slivers to work their way out of the skin of his back.

Morning came and I heard Dad up and making coffee. We dressed to go see Mom, and I noticed how Dad seemed to move in slo-mo. He had to have been tremendously sore.
On the drive, I began to get snatches of information about what really happened, and also was informed more about Mom's injuries. Much more serious than what he let on, naturally.

They had been in our green Mercury Comet (with a white vinyl top-a very cool car) going to eat at some favorite place. It was lightly raining in Dallas that night as they drove along LBJ Freeway. Dad was driving with Mom in the front, Aunt Mary and Uncle Hugh in the back. At some point, a teenager driving a large old boat-of-a-car, was trying to enter the freeway from a curving entrance ramp. He was driving too fast, as teen boys are prone to do, and lost control. My dad didn't see the car until it became airborne during a skid, and came sailing over a small concrete divider between the ramp and the freeway. It flew through the air, heading right at the Comet carrying my parents. My dad slammed on the brakes and yelled for everyone to hold on, they were about to crash. The car hit them, and they were spun around, coming to a stop, perpendicular to oncoming traffic.
My dad looked up in time to see with horror that coming right at them was the cab of a large semi truck. Only by God's grace was it not hauling a load that night. If it had been carrying a full load, this story would have had a different ending. My dad's eyes locked with those of the driver as the truck slammed into the Comet. Dad said he would never forget the look on the truck driver's face, despairing and apologetic, I'm sure thinking he was about to kill everyone in the car.

No one died that night. Seeing the mangled Comet later in the wrecking yard, we would all walk away shaking our heads in amazement that anyone survived.

Uncle Hugh's skull was smashed on one side, requiring a large section of it to have to be removed. Incredibly at the accident scene, he talked to the EMT's, saying he was really okay and actually rode to the hospital in the front seat of the ambulance with my mom on the stretcher in the back. Dad and Aunt Mary were driven in a police car behind the ambulance. In all the months and years to come, Uncle Hugh never did remember a single detail about the wreck or the days afterward. My mom had 8 broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a crushed knee where she hit the underside of the dash. She was hospitalized for a month. Uncle Hugh recovered slowly, amazingly with no brain damage, one of several miracles of the whole event. It's here that I should point out that Dad and Aunt Mary were the only ones wearing seat belts in the car. They walked away with the least amount of injury by a longshot. Good lesson for a young girl a couple of years away from driving. I NEVER go without my seat belt.

It was a traumatic experience for all of the family, and one of those life events that causes you to learn a lot of things at a rapid rate. I realized that my parents could die, and one day they would. I learned that life can change in an instant through no fault of your own.

Our bodies are a study in opposites. Both magnificently formed by God to do amazing things, yet incredibly vulnerable to the world we live in. Nerves that show us the the beauty of the earth through sights, sounds, smells and touch that bring us indescribable joy, can also cause us to feel excruciating pain and make us miserable. Nerves are responsible for enabling us to see, feel, hear and smell a waterfall or experience the saltiness of the ocean. We can rejoice in the smell of a newborn baby, feel the cuddly warmth that only a puppy or kitten uniquely possess. We can sink into the warmth of the arms of our mate, and want to stay there forever. We can sing to the Lord, feeling the joy that tells us there is so much more than this earth and this life, and yearn for that "so much more".

Yet, nerves and the pain they transmit to our brain can make us despair of life itself. They can bring depression, hopelessness, the giving up of joy. I've been there many times these past few years. Chronic pain brings despair and removes you from of the joy side of living. I've often felt removed from those around me. Existing in some parallel universe while the life I once had continues on as before with my family and friends. It's a lonely, left out, isolated place to live. All because of the nerves that also grant us the good part of being alive.
It's a mystery to me. Both blessing and cursing. God made us this way, to experience it all.

It's a roller coaster of a ride. Hang on, love the good moments like nobody's business! I want to feel the good moments again. They will be oh so sweet. And I'll never take them for granted. A good day, moment, evening or hour is a gift to be savored. Go savor the day. I'm going to.