prayerful of dreams - 2008-06-28
preschool princess - 2008-06-16
life with my sweetheart - 2008-04-29
the fast approach of four - 2008-04-12
lighting up my own life - 2008-03-08
2004-07-25 - 8:10 p.m.
Last week, Sierra and I were driving back to Syracuse, after spending the weekend visiting my sister and her children, and much to my horror I ended up encountering a horrible and gruesome accident scene.
An 18 wheeler truck had blown it's tires and had kept going, and a young driver accidentally struck some of the tire debris, and had skidded a bit, and moved over to the side of the road. Another truck driver witnessed this and pulled up behind the car and uninjured driver and kindly decided to remove the tire debris from the road, so noone else would accidentally hit it. and in doing so.
he was struck by another car. and killed instantly.
He was decapitated.
The day was ordinary, when I started out. Sunny, and warm. I couldn't find any songs on the radio that I wanted to listen to. Sierra was sleeping.
I always tend to drive too fast. The traffic was heavy all the way up 87 and I had just merged onto 90 west. It was a monday morning, and big rigs were convoying alongside me, for what seemed the entire mid morning drive . I mostly drive in the left lane, passing all the cars on the right. I kept feeling nervous about the trucks, that they might blow their tires, and swerve into me. and yet, I still passed them, 6 and 7 stretched out at a time.
and Sierra stayed sleeping the sleep of the totally innocent, strapped into her little infant carrier, with her soft knitted white blanket tucked around her sleeping form, her tiny arms folded across her chest, her little pink mouth opening with the rythmic breathing of her gentle baby sleep, the sweep of her auburn hair in waves across her forhead, the a/c blowing cooly, the radio spilling anonymous poprock
I was still getting more and more nervous. I couldn't shake the feeling of infinite uncertainty. I tried to talk myself out of it. convince myself in rational internal dialogue that everything was going to be ok.
because
It was not rainy. or snowy. Driving conditions were perfect, albeit the traffic was heavy and packed with big trucks transporting their goods, but everything seemed to be fine. US MAIL, WALMART, FRIENDLY'S, VENEZIA. etc. They all proclaimed their names in big letters.
I kept telling myself "everything is going to be fine, wendy- just drive".
the baby is safe. sound asleep.
just drive.
and though I drive fast, I always keep a safe distance. from the drivers in front of me.
I see a stream of brake lights
I see flashes of red.
I see a headless body.
I note the tanness of the torso. it is lying under a truck.
I see an older man, in a beige rain coat on a cell phone, standing on the far left side of the road ahead. several young men.
are in front of the truck on the right hand side,.. the headless torso has a bright blue t shirt.
covering the spot.
where the head should be.
just drive. wendy.
I am shaking. I am screaming on the inside.
where is the head? I keep saying, inside my own head.
don't look . wendy.
don't look.
justdrive.
the pattern of traffic is still heavy, no police on the scene.yet. i remember nothing in sequence. I am still in the left lane.I can't move over.
traffic is to heavy,
the man was decapitated, when the car struck him, and pinned him between the vehicle and the truck.
his head. is in the road. staring straight forward.
like a person buried in sand.
he has grey and white hair.
I gasp and have to swerve around his head.
I tell myself that it is not real. what I just saw.
was a movie. a bad dream. a nightmare. a prank. a cruel cruel joke.
but it isn't. it wasn't. everything about it was horribly, horribly real!!!
I immediately moved into the right lane, as soon as I could. I remember glancing over at the other drivers, in their cars. We were all silent witnesses to the same scene of gruesomeness. I kept trying to fixate on their expressions, to gage my own sense of terror, shell shocked in our unity of horror.
I wanted to pull over, but I knew I had to drive until the next reststop. Otherwise, we wouldn't be safe- Sierra and I
I didn't know if I could go on. but I also knew that I had to. Sierra was depending on me
I kept wondering what happened. even though I could sort of piece together what had occurred.
a chain of events. each sequence contributing to the tragic outcome.
I wondered what could have been done differently. I worried about the driver who had struck the man. was his life ruined now, would he be forever haunted by the image? i worried about myself. would I ever be able to scrape the image from my mind, when I closed my eyes? I also felt incredibly protective of the man. who was killed.
the indignity of it all. who was he? what was his name? why did this have to happen to him? I also felt deeply saddened, thinking about his family. How there whole world had already changed. and they weren't even aware. I had just driven through the horror of their future. A world. where their father/son/brother/husband. no longer existed and they did not even know it yet.
my mind was so fractured with so many thoughts. they were spinning like lines on a slots machine.
I kept telling myself.
the body is just a shell. the body is just a shell. he died instantly. he never felt a thing. it is worse for the living than it is for the dead. he has gone to a better place. the body is just a shell.
The scene kept playing over and over and over in my mind.
brake lights.
a truck. pulled over to the side of the road...
over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
brake lights. a human head in the road. staring straight forward. were his eyes closed or open? sometimes. I remembered them as open. sometimes. I forced nyself to remember them as shut. when i pictured it.
over and over and over.
That night I dreamt about giant tortoises. with their shells violently ripped off. they were screaming an awful high pitched scream and trying to get back into their shells, but they couldn't.
All week I have been shaken to my core. I read about the accident online. I needed to learn the victim's name. and I learned that he did indeed have a family. a wife and 2 daughters. that he was a good man. trying to be a good samiritan. He was in his 60's. some poor child's grandfather.
he didn't deserve whatr happened to him. what I drove through seemed more like the road to bagdad. than just the road to syracuse.
i didn't think that I would ever be able to stop thinking about it.
but yesterday sierra was crying. she was fussy and bored. i picked her up and put a cd in. and we danced. cheek to cheek.
I sang to her as I twirled her around. We danced to coldplay and elton john and duran duran and dave matthews and eva cassidy and sinead o connor and the cure.
" i hope you don't mind I hope you don't mind" " casue nothing compares to youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu" "somewheeeeeeeeeeereeeeeeeeee oooovvvvverrrrrrr the rainboow" "and I'm hungry like the wooooooooolllllllllffffffff" " withouttttttttttttttttttt youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu"crasssssshhhhh intoooooooooooo me" greeeeeeeeeeen eyes.............. your the oneeeeeee for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"
and I felt the adrenaline and exhuberance of the moment. of my baby's smile. when she looked into my eyes. of the pure and utter power of such love.
sierra's father. wants nothing to do with her.
he will voluntarily rush into a burning building. to save someone. or race to the scene of an accident because he is a fireman
but he does not want to know his own child. he will never hold her. or see his own eyes. looking back at him, in her smile
she has highjacked my heart.
though I give it to her willingly. she owns me . and she knows it.
I feel so bad for her father.
I really really do.
but the moment that we spent dancing. sierra and I. I completely forgot.
about the accident scene.
about everything. sad.
and bad, and fucked up in this world.
my child has the power to make me only see beauty.
loving her makes me so vulnerable.
she is my everything.
i get scared. when I look ahead. when I look behind me.
when I close my eyes. when I open them.
but i can't let that fear take over.
somehow. sierra and I are going to be ok. I hope.
just drive, wendy.
I cherish her smile.
I have her total love.
I have to keep her safe.
she likes it when I sing.
and she especially loves it when we dance.
when we dance.
like everything is somehow gonna be ok.
" i hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind, that I put down in wordsssssss how wonderfullllllllll life isssssssssss when you're in the worrrrrrrrrrrrlddddddddddddd"
old starlight - new starbright
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