Grandma's Pearls

About yesterday's rant..

About yesterday's rant, the story that I saw on the news really upset me. That poor woman/mother. She got there just in time to hold her sons hand, she told him she was there, he squeezed her hand and then he died. The boy was only 14 years old. It was just so tragic and horrifying at the same time. It brought back memories of a phone call I got from my son, many years ago.
Every parent has the fear of getting THE PHONE CALL in the middle of the night. You all know which one I mean. That call doesn't always come in the middle of the night, it can be at 10 o'clock in the morning, like mine. My oldest daughter was at work, her sister and brother were at school(so I thought), my 4th child was in school(jr.high) and my youngest was in elementary school. I know that my 4th and 5th kids were at school, I took them. My other 2 were in high school and wanted to ride with a friend. I thought they were old enough and responsible enough to do that, so, I said o.k.
In retrospect, they weren't and I almost paid dearly for that mistake. They went to school and then left between classes. They drove out to the country. The boy they rode to school with had family property and that was where they went, so they wouldn't get caught. When they were leaving from there, later that afternoon, one of those blinding white rain storms popped up. Instead of waiting it out, the boy decided to try to drive back in it. They were on a small country road. It was just barely big enough for 2 cars to scrape past each other on a bright sunny day. Needless to say, they were hit head on. Ironically by a little old lady driving on the wrong side of the road, during this rain storm. The kids called 911 from their cell phone. The 911 people thought it was a joke and didn't believe them. About 30 minutes after the accident, the mail lady drove up and took 1 of the kids to a house down the road to use the phone and call the paramedics. Then she took him back to the accident and continued her route.
Luckily for the kids, the woman's house that they went to was a nurse and she went to the accident scene to help. The boy that was driving, dislocated his hip and got his knee cut up pretty bad, a boy riding in the back, broke his nose. A girl riding in the back needed stitches in her forehead, from the seat-belt buckle on the door. My son broke his ankle and now has a screw and wire permanently embedded in his ankle bone. My daughter was pinned under the dash and had a closed head injury. When my son called me on the cell phone, I thought that I was going to have a heart attack. I have never heard my son so close to panic in his whole life. He was only about 14 or 15 at the time and he had already been through stitches and broken bones. Boys will be boys, as they say.
When he called me, he was crying and cussing because he couldn't get his sister out of the car. The door was stuck shut and her legs were stuck under the dash. She was unconscious but crying for me. I could hear her in the background. I have never been so scared in my life. I asked my son where they were and he tried to tell me but he didn't really know. The nurse lady that came to help told me what hospital they would be taken to and then put my son back on the phone. I tried to talk to my daughter and calm her down, but, she couldn't hear me. When I hung up with my son, as the ambulances arrived, I was on the phone paging my husband with 911 after the phone #. Told him what happened, called the elementary school and jr high school, had a friend go get them from thier schools and then paced the sidewalk waiting on my husband. I probably smoked half a pack of cigarettes in the 15-20 minutes it took him to get home. Then we were driving to the hospital, an hour away. I was so scared, terrified that I would be too late. I have never felt anything like that before and I hope to never feel that again.
We got to the hospital at the same time as the ambulance that had my son and daughter were in. When I saw my son, he said he was sorry he couldn't help his sister. I hugged him and told him that I loved him and that he did his best to help her and he rode with her in the ambulance. That helped her and me. He said that he wasn't going to let her go alone, even though the driver told him to get in the other one, he refused and told them that he was going with his sister, period! My daughter was semi-comatose for 8 days. She had to be transported to the hospital where we lived, after they made sure she could make the trip. My son rode to that hospital with his father and I rode in the ambulance with my daughter. We pretty much arrived at the same time. To everyone reading this, next time you see an ambulance, please get out of thier way. You would not believe how many people don't move out of the way. I got so pissed off because no-one would move and we had to slowly maneuver through traffic at intersections. On more than 1 occasion, we had to drive on the wrong side of the road because the people wouldn't pull over to the right and stop.
My daughter and son are o.k. today. He has a son, who is soon to be 7 years old and looks just like his Dad. Acts like him too. My daughter has 2 daughters and she is a stay at home mom, like myself. She is o.k. but different than she used to be. She has absolutely no memory of the accident and really doesn't have any lasting affects from it. Although, her temper is a lot shorter than it used to be and she doesn't have a lot of patience anymore either. There are other things that are different but it is difficult to put into words just exactly what they are. I think it is only something that I can see because the doctor's couldn't find anything wrong. She can't drive in the rain, if she has to go somewhere other than her usual places, i.e., Walmart, Kroger, mom's house,etc. She has panic attacks if she rides with her husband somewhere and it is raining. She ended up marrying the guy that was driving the car when they got into the accident. How ironic is that?
I used to describe my daughters using analogies of nature, My oldest was the awesome looming thunderstorm on the horizon, complete with thunder and lightening and wind. Her sister was the sunshine and rainbows and flowers after the storm. Now it seems as if they traded places. Maybe they just grew up, but I think there is more than just that. My youngest daughter says that her older sister is her inspiration and the wind beneath her wings. Every time they hear that song, by Bette Midler, they call each other and both of them cry.
They are very close these days even though they live states apart. All of my kids are close to each other. They know that without your family, you have nothing.