Snippets

Accidents like this are recalled in snippets.  Sudden flashes that remind me it's all real.  Images that greet me before I even open my eyes in the morning, waking into another day of getting up, splashing water on my face, and getting to the hospital.  As I drive I remember what day it is and what the original plan was before the crash.  Hotel reservations never cancelled, road trip dates passed, and daily routines slammed to a halt.  It's all a blur as I make it from League City to Ben Taub Hospital in downtown Houston.  Though the days are long I carry on.  My husband is alive.  Everything else is insignificant. 

 

 

On February 19, 2014, Kevin was riding his motorcycle to Mancuso Power Sports to check out some bags for his new Ducati Mutistrada. He just returned from Singapore the day before and in three weeks he would be riding a motorcycle through the back roads around Cape Town, South Africa.  It was a good day. I followed behind him so we could grab some lunch while we left the bike at the shop for a routine check. Merging on to 59 South from 610 North in Belaire, my husband was blind sided by an SUV that made a crazy last minute, illegal lane change.  That snippet plays over and over. I see a car beginning to change lanes.  One car separates me from my husband.  Though I can't see my husband's bike I know there isn't room for that vehicle coming over. And then I see something like a ragdoll go up in the air and back down out of my sight. I know he's down.

There are other snippets that endlessly loop: my frantic screams, my husband unresponsive on the road, the stillness of traffic halted, the deafening fear in the silence of knowing this is life or death.

 

Angels also come in snippets.  It's amazing how many people stay in their cars and watch but then there are the few that come to help.  The man who sees everything and is first to call 911.  A complete stranger who prays over my husband and in that moment he wakes. A man who reminds my husband to breathe. The neurosurgeon just ahead of the scene who runs back to assess Kevin while we wait for first responders to make their way through snarled traffic.  Every driver who pulled aside to let the ambulance through.  The woman who gave me a hug.  I'll never know who these people are in their everyday lives but in their moments of stopping for strangers and doing whatever they could, they will always be angels in my heart.

 

Today is day 8 in the hospital.  These hours also play out in snippets though they feel like one uninterrupted sequence of lightless days. Emily, our daughter, and I take our comfort here.  We pass the moments with quiet pursuits waiting for the day we remember the healing journey in distant snippets.



LOVE  &  HEALING