On a day in late spring, some years ago, I had just opened the door of a friend's house on my way out to retrieve a package from my husband's truck when I witnessed something that to this very day retains both moments of horrible clarity and blessed moments of forgetfulness, that are now dulled both by trauma and time. The human brain is an amazing organ, able to process and slow that which we know is taking place in a matter of mere seconds. How is it that we can have so many complete thoughts all the while, while witnessing something so horrendous? So mind-bogglingly impossible? It's not something I would wish on anyone, but today I am going to share. And then I am going to tell you why...
How to begin? I'm surprised even now, but I've got the belly shakes just trying to write about it, so bear with me if my descriptions seem a little dis-jointed or confusing. It's hard to paint a picture of this tragic scene.
As I said, I had just opened the door...
Our friends lived in a house which sat about sixty-five or seventy feet off of a somewhat busy two lane highway. Right off the road was an enbankment sloping downwards toward their home, where the yard leveled off, flat and fairly even, a yard like any other, trees, flowers, a nice front porch on which to sit, but the cars zoomed by. Fast. Too fast! They had, on their property a good two acres of road frontage, so that their driveway was somewhat raised because of the downward slope, creating it's own enbankments on either side. The highway enbankment on the side away from the house was quite steep, while the one in front of the yard was more mild. But when it was over, that was where the car came to rest. In my friends front yard.
I heard the revving of the motor and my first thought was, "those crazy kids, what are they doing racing three wide?". I now know of course, that my mind saw that very first part wrong. If they had of just been racing, he wouldn't have been on that side of the road, the wrong side of the road. He was on the shoulder and then he started skidding along the steep enbankment, car slanted, great clods of dirt flying through the air. My next thought was that he was going to hit my husband's truck, as it was parked parrallel to the highway on a little side drive. He didn't hit the truck. He hit the driveway enbankment instead. And the car started to flip. I was still holding onto the front door, accident ongoing literally in front of my eyes when I yelled back into the house to call 911.
After everything came to a stop, I ran to the car, a red 1967 Camaro, fully restored recently. Very recently. I would later learn that this was his first day out in that car. I will never learn what he was thinking. I was on the passenger side of the car which was now upside down and I could see into the window a man hanging upside down by his seatbelt. He was saying, "My baby, my baby!" "Where is my baby?" Taking him quite literally, I began to search the back seat for a baby and a baby seat. No baby. But the man seemed to be okay. At some point the man must have gotten out of that car, I'm not quite sure when.
My husband had raced out of the house and it so happened that he went to the other side of the car. The driver's side. Somehow he and I were separated about twenty or so feet, I think. I started to walk over when I heard my husband say to me, "Don't. Don't come over here." I had never seen a look like that in my husband's eyes and as he has never been one to give me orders, I obeyed unquestioningly. I can still see, to this day, my husband telling me wordlessly, with only his eyes, what he had found. The thirteen year old girl was pinned under the roof of the car and there was no hope. She was gone and the sight so gruesome that my dear husband wanted to spare me that. Later events would compel me to carry my own share of guilt for letting him, as when a crowd gathered and they lifted the car off of her, I stood back as my husband had ordered me to do. And even later, as the crowd circled to pray for her, I was unable to pray, for I knew she was gone. I hope I go the whole rest of my life without ever seeing that look in my husband's eyes again!
Later I would learn facts. Facts which made the whole thing even so much more unacceptable, so much more unforgivable. He was speeding of course, trying to pass another car on that dangerous two lane, busy highway. But he was forced by oncoming traffic onto the opposite shoulder and down that enbankment. But why? Why was he speeding with his daughter in the car? He was only going a mile up the road to pick up his son from the convenience store where he worked. One lousy mile! No reason to speed, to speed like that. Not for one lousy mile! But, oh, he just had to test out that souped up, red, restored Camaro. The very first day, with his thirteen year old daughter in the car. I might've forgiven him, eventually, if he hadn't bought a Harley with the insurance money. What a poor, pathetic man child.
I've deliberately forgotten the date, but I know it was a Friday. The Friday of the last day of school for the local kids. For that thirteen year old girl, there will be no more summers.
So, why? Why share all of this with you? I've come to think of this Bush administration as one, giant, COSMIC. CAR. CRASH. So much damage. So much irretrievably lost. So much post traumatic stress suffered by so many, soldiers and civilians alike. When I use words like mind-bogglingly impossible and horrendous, isn't that what we have all suffered? Eye-witnesses, one and all to LIES, TORTURE, CRIMINALITY AND CORRUPTION. So much, too much, heretofore unseen in our nation's history that if we had a loved one or friend to tell, we would say... "Don't. Don't come over here!"
It's been a difficult and long primary but now we know who our nominee is going to be. But still we fight and disagree, sometimes losing sight of our primary goal. We must get these poor, pathetic man-children out of our government. If you will forgive a lay-person's analysis, I think I know why we are all so tense these days. It's as if the closer and closer we get to November and then January, waiting to see which way America will turn, which road will she take, we are all suffering from some form of PTSD. We've seen things we never thought to see. We have seen our country take a direction we never thought she would, all traveling at a highly dangerous speed.
I do think that thousands of us would agree on one thing though. I know who I want driving next time!