- Return

Aunt Sandy sat next to me still sleeping in the hospital bed.  It was her watch.  The blinds on the windows were all drawn and the room was dark and quiet.  Every so often a nurse or two would come in to check on us of give medications.  We were all on antibiotics, and Rick was being given other medications for his head injury.  She wasn’t sure what they all were for, but didn’t really care, so log as they helped.

She would have stoked my hair, but a large helmet-like bandage was wrapped tightly around my head, securing the stitches that Bruce used to piece it back together.  On my leg he had put a large cast that extended from my inner thigh to my ankle.  Behind the protection of the dressings there were over 100 sutures, all across my head and down both the inside and the outside of the back of my leg.

            Sandy gazed woefully down at me.  She was heartbroken.  She had lost her big sister, and we had lost our precious mother, and were so badly hurt.  It was such a large burden.  She was almost glad that we didn’t have to know.  Not yet.

            She touched her belly.  Her own first baby was growing there, only a few months along.  She had told mom about the baby what seemed like such a short time ago and mom had cried with joy.  Sandy had been so excited that she would be able to introduce them some day.  That was all gone now.

Kim and Rick both had head dressings just like mine.  Sandy had gone back and forth to each of us that morning and spent time singing softly and telling stories to our un-hearing ears.  She had heard that that was a good idea.  Now she sat next to me stroking my shoulder so that I could at least feel the warm touch of another, and softly and sang a lullaby.  She did not want to leave us.

            A wave of motion from deep inside me gently rocked my body, ever so slightly.  Sandy stopped and looked at me intensely, staring at my closed lids.  Behind them, my eyes darted back and forth.  Somewhere beyond, I floated in a dark liquid-like world of darkness swirling around me.  It was now slowly beginning to drain, like if I were lying on my back under the water of a full bathtub and then someone pulled the plug.  The surface slowly lowed toward me until the interface between it and air beyond reached the tip of my nose. 

Without a ripple or sound my body slowly broke through, and emerging from the fabric of my dreams I opened my eyes. 

Sandy looked back at me for an excited second and gripped my hand, joy pouring into her heart.  I weakly smiled back at her, but did not speak.  I had no idea where I was or what I was doing there.

            “You wait here!” she said, barely able to contain herself, and shot to her feet.  A tear ran down her check.  She squeezed my hand and lifted it to her warm lips and pressed them against it, trembling.  She then laid it gently across my chest.

“Welcome back,” she whispered and hurried out of the room.

I stared up at the lifeless television bolted to the opposite wall and wished someone would turn it on.

Dad and Chris came to see me later on.  Chris had a new cast on his arm.  He said hey to me and then took off with some relatives.  He tried not to act sad, for my benefit.  Lots of other people came and went in the hours or days or weeks or whatever it was that passed.  I had no reference for time, but it seemed like it went on forever.  It was only shortly after I woke up that I asked the obvious question.  I was hurt and wanted my mommy.  When I cried for her to come at some point, dad gently took my hand and told me that she couldn’t come.  Confused, I asked why.

“Mommy died, son,” he said, his voice breaking as he did.

“Who killed her??”  I asked breaking into tears of my own, not even really comprehending what that meant.

“She died in the airplane,” dad said, almost with a whisper and looked away from my wide-eyed stare. 

My dad, throughout my life has never told me a lie.  So he couldn’t tell me then that everything would be alright.  His body hurt too, and he was still trying to make sense of it all.  He wasn’t so sure at that moment that it would be alright.

When he left and I was alone, I just lay there in stunned disbelief unable to comprehend the enormity of what dad told me meant.  I don’t think that feeling has ever really left me.

Kim and Rick still lay fast asleep and would be out for the next three days.  Kim seemed to come around quickly once she awoke and got over her shock.  I was sitting in my bed next to her watching TV and when I looked over, she had sat up and was quietly blinking at me.  I swung my cast leg off the bed and carefully made my way to her.  She smiled at me, and I held up a small stuffed dog someone had left near her so she could see.

A nurse came in and quietly moved me aside and looked Kim over, stroking her head.

“Randy’s teasing me.” Kim said with a smile.  I smiled back, and the nurse laughed and quickly turned to get a doctor.  My little sister had made it, and knowing that filled me with joy.

Rick wasn’t doing so well.  He had emerged from his coma a few days after Kim while I was out of the room, and when I saw him he seemed to be very slow and weak.  He couldn’t speak at all at first, and uttered strange words that only seemed to have meaning to him.  They said he’d be okay in a little while and I believed them, but I was impatient.  I wanted to play with my big brother again.