Thankful For It All

When I was nine years old, I was involved in two bad accidents. The first accident was a car wreck which was serious enough that I was in the hospital for almost three weeks. I don't know for sure, but I think I was pretty close to cashing in my chips. I probably should know how serious it was, but I don't because I wasn't really awake for a couple weeks. I think they had me on some good drugs and I missed most of it after getting chucked out of the crashing jeep and landing in the street.  

That time in the hospital is just a blur.  I do remember not being able to talk since my broken jaw was wired shut so that was pretty awesome.  I also remember looking in the mirror a few days before I got to go home and being shocked at my own appearance.  I was pale and had bright red scars and stitches running down the side of my face.  I hit the pavement pretty hard when I got thrown from the jeep and it tore a lot of skin on my face.  It was pretty gruesome.  Kids are sensitive about their appearance and when I saw my reflection, I rode an emotional elevator of self-esteem to the bottom floor.  I felt sorry for myself.  

After they released me from the hospital, my Mom picked me up in a borrowed car of some kind to go home but first we had to pick up my Sister who was at a play for kids at Davis auditorium.  It was one of those school sponsored events where the kids get out of school for half a day and go to a play or an event of some kind.  I don't know what the play was but it seemed to be pretty popular because a flood of kids came streaming out of the auditorium looking for their parents.  All the parents were just parked on the street, waiting for their kids.  When my Sis saw us she came over and opened the door to get in, then she saw me and screamed.  She didn't mean to hurt my feelings but I kept that movie of her reaction looped in my memory for a decade.

Several months later, the second accident that year involved a shower door on the Forth of  July.  My Sister and I spent the day at Kenny and Pinky Paxton's house, running through the barn and the alfalfa fields so we were kind of a mess.  Dirt hung on us like the kid on the "Peanuts" cartoon with the clouds of dust that linger no matter where he goes . We went home at three or four in the afternoon because Mom and Dad had some folks coming over for a Forth of July celebration and since we were filthy, they sent my Sister and I to shower. We had one shower, so we showered at the same time. We were kids.  It wasn't weird until I had to explain it.  Now it just seems kind of creepy.  

I don't think my Sister and I ever spoke a kind word to each other until we were in our twenties, so it isn't surprising that we were fighting in the shower. She got mad and turned the water on hot and jumped out, threw the shower door closed and held it closed.   I didn't get burned by the hot water, but I was really mad, so I threw my shoulder into the door to push her back. I broke the door, glass flew everywhere and I was cut badly. This was many years ago, before safety glass, so when the glass door broke, it broke into dozens of long, razor sharp glass shards that slashed me open from bow to stern. I was squirting blood from a dozen holes. I had cut skin, muscle, tendons and arteries.

My sister saw the blood and got scared and started to run in place and scream. I remember her feet were dancing up and down while she screamed. Since there was glass all over the floor, she was cut pretty badly too and she screamed non-stop. I don't blame her, it must have been a scary thing to see me squirting blood like a firehose. My Dad heard the fighting and the screaming and came running into the bathroom, saw my sister and I naked, wet from the shower and bleeding everywhere, and he just stopped. I think he was in shock, because he stood there for a few seconds. He may have said something, I don't know, but I do know nobody should have to see their kids in that much blood. I feel bad that he had to go through that.

My Mom heard the screaming, she comes down the hall, scared out of her mind, whispering 'What's wrong?  Mert?  What's wrong?'. Mom's voice or my sisters screaming cut through Dad's shock and he told Mom "Don't come in here, call the ambulance".  Of course Mom can't follow decent directions to save her life so she peeks her head around the bathroom door and screams like Fay Wray.  Dad finally got her moving in the direction of the phone to call the ambulance and she ran off.

Dad saw that my Sister was mostly OK, compared to me, so he sent her to the neighbors.  He could only deal with one of us at a time.  She had hunks of glass jammed into her feet, but she took off like a shot, naked, to go hang out at the neighbors while Dad tried to save me. She ran though every room in the neighbors house, leaving little girl bloody footprints everywhere. The running just pushed the glass further into her feet, bringing up more blood, so the footprints had to be a sight to behold. I never saw them as I was otherwise occupied.  If your kid had the cuts on her feet that my sister did, you would fly in surgeons from the furthest reaches.  She was pretty cut up.

Dad picks me up and carries me to the front door, naked and bleeding, to wait for the ambulance. I was too weak to lift a finger. We sat there together, he cradled me in his arms, on the threshold of the front door. I remember being too week to put my hand over my privates. From the front door, it was only forty or fifty feet to the street and I could see cars slow and stare at us and then drive off.  Nobody stopped to help.  How weird is that?  There was a man holding a naked bleeding boy in the doorway of a house and they don't offer to help?   They just slowed and drove past. How is that possible that they didn't try to help?  Crazy.

I was getting tired and Dad was afraid if I passed out, I might not wake, so he kept trying to make me talk. I lost so much blood that I was dizzy, but I tried not to pass out. I don't know if I passed out or not. The ambulance fetched me and took me to the hospital. I do remember that they hit every freakin bump possible. It's just rude.

That story is gross and it makes me uneasy to tell it but it is actually just the prologue.  Here is the real story: I relate the following in the hope that it really happened, but honestly I don't know. I was so loopy from loss of blood that I could have imagined it, I have no way to know for sure. The point is that it is real enough for me. To this day, I believe it is real, but even if it didn't happen, it is lodged in me like just like my lungs or my heart. 

I was in the hospital, laying on a gurney, getting prepped for surgery or just getting out of surgery, I don't know which. I was in in no pain, or more accurately I was in much less pain than I had been so I guess they had me on some good meds. They had a lot of sewing to do.  So I was on a gurney in a hallway, being pushed by a nurse, then she stopped pushing me and just left me.  I was alone and scared. Maybe she left me there for a few seconds or maybe it was a few minutes or maybe longer, I don't know for sure. Maybe she needed to fetch something, I don't know that either, but I do know I was alone in the middle of a hallway, laying on a gurney, looking up at the ceiling. The walls were covered in shiny enamel white paint that must have been scrubbed clean every day.   The ceiling lights were the long tube type that were spaced out a bit, leaving ten or fifteen feet between lights and as the nurse rolled me down the hall, each time I went under the lights, they seemed really bright and made my eyes hurt, but they were spaced out enough so between the lights it wasn't too bad.  The place the nurse left me was more dark than light, shadows lay over the walls and floor and it was creepy.  It was creepy like a Stephen King book.  

I remember that I was scared but I wasn't in distress, if that makes any sense.  I also remember I was feeling sorry for myself. I was alone, and I had just been cut to crap and it wasn't my fault and I wanted my Mom. A lot of self pity there, I know, but considering the circumstances, I don't expect much of a critique on that count.

Then I noticed a boy a year or two older than myself lay on a gurney next to me. He was getting pushed down the hall too, but in the other direction, and he was abandoned by his nurse too.  We were two kids, about the same age and we were both a mess.  I assume he either had been operated on or was going to be operated on shortly, but I don't know for sure. I think he had been in a car wreck and he was screaming. He kept saying 'Please, make it go away!, It hurts, please help me, make it go away!' He was screaming this over and over and I just wanted him to stop. I felt sorry for him, but I wanted him to stop screaming. It scared me. His screams echoed down the hall and nobody was there to help.  I don't remember anything after that.  I passed out.

Years go by and I forgot this whole thing, or to be completely truthful, I chose not to think of it   I put it out of  my mind for these many years, until recently.  It comes to mind now, from time to time.  I think of the boy on the gurney, asking for help, I think he was in worse shape than I, and I think I don't know if he made it out of that hospital alive.  I don't know why,  but I think he died.  I think that I couldn't help him, but I could have tried to get somebody else to help him and I did nothing. I think that I didn't know his name, I didn't even ask. 

Self reflection is something I can do pretty well and when I think of that day, it reminds me that no matter how bad I have it, my life is blessed beyond any reasonable level. Others have it worse and I have been given so much. No matter how bad it gets, other are worse off.  I think that self pity is a thing that can consume you, and in my life I tend to be consumed by almost anything.  

Like I said, the part about the other boy on the gurney may not be true, but I remember it like it did happen, so for me, it is true.  I  hope that the other boy didn't die that day, but if he did, I hope he went someplace where he wasn't in pain,  and if he did make it out of the hospital, I hope he forgives me for not helping him.