Heaven

One minute, “Sugar” cranked…

the next…

crash,

twisted metal,

shattered glass,

and what’s left of me covered in blood, my limbs twisted grotesquely. 

A white mist,

a brilliant light beckons,

and I can’t resist. 

Behind iridescent gates, with open arms, Jesus welcomes.

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Second Chance

      Allison cranked the radio, rolled down the window, and enjoyed the freedom her driver’s license afforded her.  She quickly composed a text message saying she would be home soon and tapped the send button.   

      Realizing too late that a truck had stopped in front of her, she stomped on the brakes hard sending the car skidding as the air bag deployed.  Glass shattered, metal crunched, and the horn sounded as she slumped over.   The phone dropped as the darkness claimed her.  

       A week later her eyes finally fluttered open.    Intense pain overwhelmed her.  A second chance, I am truly alive!

The Call

This is a fictional piece I wrote for the Write Tribe Wednesday #6 writing prompt

     I kept watching the clock.  It was only 15 minutes until I could clock out and rush to meet her.  Today is the day!  I am going to propose to the love of my life!  I can’t wait to meet her at our favorite restaurant.  She has no idea that in my pocket I hold the diamond ring I chose for her.   She only knows we are to meet.

       She had texted me earlier that she only had a few more errands to run and then we could be together.  By then, my work day will be over and the weekend can begin.  I love weekends because I spend every moment with her.  How I love her, and tonight she will finally know how much.

       As I log off my computer my phone rings.  Should I answer?  I don’t want too.  I want to start my weekend!!  I want to rush to her side.  I want her to say yes so we can begin the rest of our lives together.    I see on the caller ID it is her mother.  I better answer.

     With a song in my heart I answer to discover her mother sobbing on the other end.  My breath catches as I hear the news.  My heart stops a beat.  There has been an accident and my love has been killed.  My life is as over as is hers.  “How will I live without her?” I wonder as I am overtaken with heart retching sobs.

15 Minute Glimpse

       My Dad always used to say “Give me 5 minutes and I will tell you everything I know.”    Beth, the creative force behind the GBE2 is giving me 15 minutes of free writing to unleash the beast within.   The first thing that comes to mind is what a week it has been.  It all began Friday with my son’s science fair.  Here I was silently celebrating the fact that the science fair was behind me finally.  Wrongo, my little first grader did so well he is going on to the district science fair in February.  

 

       Because of that fact, the weekend was peppered with celebrations of pizza and dancing the pony, video games, and all manners of merriment passing too quickly with all three of us groaning at the arrival of Monday.  Still, it was all good.  The kids marched off to school and I settled into my normal routine.  Life is so exciting, NOT!!  I started working out with the Wii Fit again recharging my desire to lose weight.  This time was a little different.  I chose a cartoon dude with a muscular physique for my trainer.   I always hated that little skinny girl trainer telling me that maybe next time I could do better.  Yeah, maybe next time I can pop you one.  Whatever, the guy’s criticism seems easier to take.

 

      Tuesday the accident occurred.  As much as I yell at my kids to settle down and quit playing so rough…they never listen!!  This particular time they truly should of.  Evidently my son’s brakes need checked because while horsing around brushing his teeth with his big sister he managed to ram all that makes him a boy into the side of the tub.  His twig and giggle berries were not amused.  From the sounds coming from my kid, he wasn’t either.  I was horrified.  Truly though, who hasn’t offered to give some smart ass man a good swift kick in the family jewels in their life?  I mean really, who hasn’t?  You get good and pissed off and you want to get them where it hurts.  That smart a$$ man in my fondest dreams of removing testicles never included my precious little boy.  His poor twig and giggle berries!!  Oh Lord and sunny Je$us, my future grandchildren!

       Never in my wildest dreams could I have fathomed calling my doctor at night, while my kid screamed bloody murder in the background, and tell him “My son has hurt his testicles!!! What do I do? Ice?  Warm soothing bath?”  I could almost hear the doctor cringe and cross his own legs over the phone.  “Oh NO! You never want to do THAT!  THAT will make it worse!!”  Seriously I had no clue.  I mean, geez, shouldn’t you honestly ice something that is swelling up like a balloon?   I don’t have parts like that.  How the hell would I know?  Evidently Ibuprofen is the answer, and with instructions to take two of those magic pills every four hours, he hung up.  All right, gotcha.  It is a call no mother in their right mind should ever have to make.  Right up there with the note to the teacher and nurse explaining that it might be nice if they could make sure he had some ibuprofen after lunch and WHY, just in case.  Oh M Gee!   Explaining the situation to my husband was almost comical.  “He hit his WHAT where?  WHY would he do THAT“ 
  

       During all of this fiasco with the twig and giggle berries I decided to do something drastic.   Let’s face it.  I never in my wildest dreams thought I would ever go back to school or G0d forbid take a class.  I honestly thought I was too old for that $hit, but guess what?  Wednesday I started a class in Web Design that is going to be great and I LOVITY LOVE IT!  Not only can I take it from home, but with my library card it is free!  How in the world could I possibly resist that?   Did I mention it was FREE!!    Free pass to knowledge!!  Obviously I couldn’t resist.  The best part is there are more courses where that came from that will keep me busy learning the ins and outs of Web Design and photography for a good long time to come.  It is just what I needed to drag my sorry moping near menopausal a$$ out of the depression I have been in since after the holidays.
 

      While I was reeling in the exciting aftermath of my first class in years and my son’s giggle berry catastrophe, my daughter woke up with a fever of 103 degrees this morning.  So here I am fighting her fever with baths, medication, and rest and wishing it was Friday.  Is it Friday yet?  No it is not.  The damn fever only went down 1 measly degree!  Hold still while I douse you with another bucket of water!  Is it Friday yet??  No tomorrow is and if I can get her well enough she will need to march back to school and catch up on what she missed today.  Some weeks roll along without a single hitch and others you start doing the pony dance and end up grabbing your balls and wincing in pain.  His balls, not mine!  I don’t have balls unless my ovaries count.  They should after all.  Oh hell, you know what I mean!   I guess that is how it goes.  My 15 minutes are up until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.

 

Rest

     After my son’s accident on Thursday I haven’t slept much.  My constant battle with the fever that cropped up early Saturday morning has left me feeling strung out and overly tired.  The doctor has prescribed rest and antibiotics for my son.  I wish he would have prescribed some for me.  I desperately need some.  Despite my ministrations, his fever raged on through all of Saturday and into today causing my worry to escalate and more intense one on one phone consultations with our doctor.


     

      I feel as I have been transported back into time to the days when my son was a newborn and I would constantly check on him while he was sleeping to insure he was in fact breathing.  I was a typical mother of a newborn.  I hovered over my baby worrying about whether he was breathing, eating enough, sleeping enough, crying to much, or if his poop was the right consistency.  I must have driven our doctor insane with my worries!  Since my son’s concussion I have been frozen in a constant state of worry.  Yes, I have prayed.  I have found seeing our doctor and trusting him to have the situation well in hand has calmed my fears a bit.  The adrenaline that fueled my panicked worry has fled me and left me feeling strung out and exhausted.  I still worry that my son will miss another day of school due to the fever that has stuck around.  The rule of thumb is that a child must be fever free for a full 24 hours before he is able to return to school.  As of yet, that hasn’t happened.

      I counted my blessings that at least he hadn’t vomited and only felt nauseated.  Feeling nauseated is perfectly normal when there is swelling on the brain they say.   Then my son vomited, and that obviously temporary feeling of things returning to as they should be fled and the worries returned.


       

   

     I am so tired, but do I dare rest?  He may need me.  There is laundry to finish up.  The groceries had to be bought and put away. The dishes had to be done.  I must write to fulfill my goal to blog each day for NaBloPoMo.  Is the washing machine and dryer finished with their cycles all ready?  The silence tells me they are.  It is time to put in more and fold more.  It is fast approaching 7:00 pm.  There is supper to be fixed and eaten. 


  
     

     Where did the day go?  Why do I feel like I haven’t accomplished a thing when I have?  Go lie down and rest my husband insists on one of his many calls today.  I can’t.  I must do this, this, this, and this first.  It is time for my son to have more antibiotic again.  It is never ending and time marches on leaving me in the dust.  Am I moving in slow motion while the clock speeds up?  There is no rest for the wicked, but hopefully one day soon there will be until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.

Adventure Finds Me!

     I am a person who never goes looking for adventure.  I don’t bungee jump, hang glide, or strap on a parachute and hurl myself out of airplanes.  I just drift through life doing what I have to do when I have to do it, all cool, calm, and collected.  Whether I like it or not, adventure finds me.    I am always oblivious, and adventure usually sneaks up and grabs me right in the a$$ taking me by surprise. 

        When I was a college freshmen at Belmont University, I decided on the spur of the moment that I wanted to go home.  Let’s forget the fact that home happened to be an 8 hour drive away.   Even though I had told my mom that I intended to spend the weekend on campus, as soon as my last class was over I was overcome with the need, determination, and insanity to drive home.

         I threw some clothes and books into the back of my car, cranked the radio’s volume to full blast and pointed my car north.  I was 18, had the world by the a$$, and wanted to go home, so away I went.  I checked no weather reports because the sun was shining.  I notified no one that I was on my way.  I just got in my car and moved it right along.

         Somewhere along the way the sun retreated behind the clouds.  The threatening skies made little difference to me.  I had my tunes cranked and at that moment I was singing along to Bon Jovi.  I had my mojo working, my head was banging to the beat, and I was really getting into the music when all of a sudden a newscaster broke into the middle of the song.  “If you are in Brown County, take shelter immediately!  A tornado has touched down near I-65 and is traveling north.  Repeat, if you are in the path of this storm, take cover NOW!”    It took me a minute for this piece of information to register.    “Oh hells bells, I am on I-65!”  I then passed a sign welcoming me to Brown County.  Brown County!!  I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter and looked around.  I looked over to my left and just about $hit my pants.  There was a huge tornado blowing up a barn right alongside of me!!  I freaked out.  I didn’t know whether to cuss or pray so I did a little bit of both.  

       Instead of pulling off to the side of the road and taking cover, I slammed my foot to the gas pedal and floored it.   All the other vehicles around me had the same reaction because everyone seemed to move in a pack like a bat out of hell.   Rain poured down in sheets.   I couldn’t see where I was going.  All I could see was the tail lights of the semi truck in front of me.  I knew if that semi truck went off the road, I would follow it.  If the tornado changed course, it would hit me.  Either way I sliced it, I was probably going to be having tea and cakes with Je$u$ in short order.  So I buried the gas pedal, said a prayer, and hauled a$$ all the way to Indianapolis.

         By the time I reached Indianapolis, I had to pee BAD.  Honestly it is a wonder I didn’t pee myself on the way.  My brain was frazzled and if I wasn’t three sandwiches short of a picnic before, I was definitely a little closer to needing a straight jacket by the time I guided my Dodge Shelby Charger through the construction barricades that surrounded the gas station.

         Evidently I drove through the wrong barriers because the next thing I knew my car was nose down in a deep ditch.  I lost it with a capital L.  I managed to climb out of my car and rushed up to the station to demand they get my car out of their little moat NOW.  I was going to pee, use the phone, and then I wanted to head on down the highway.  It didn’t matter if it was my fault for having my head up my a$$ and driving through the wrong barriers.  It was their barriers, their moat, and their job to get it un-f***** immediately before I completely lost my mind right there in their lovely establishment.  Before long I was back on the road with only a scratch on the spoiler.  

          I finally did make it home and lived to tell the tale.  I never go looking for adventure, but I always manage to find it no matter how much I try to avoid it until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.

Jane's Story: What Really Happened that Night

     This is a fun, "fictional" story I wrote  for the GBE2 blogging prompt this week.  We were challenged to come up with a more interesting story to explain how our friend Jane ended up with 27 stitches.  This is my submission. I hope you enjoy it!

      Did you hear what happened to our dear friend Jane?  The last thing she remembers is sitting innocently at her computer working on her latest blog while sipping an innocent glass of wine.  According to Jane, she woke up in a pool of blood with a huge gash on her face and has no clue how in the world she got that way.  Can anyone possibly believe her innocent tale that she blacked out, banged her head into a wine glass which broke, and left the horrendous gash?  I am here to tell you the real story.


       

        Jane was home alone at the time.  For one reason or another, everyone was out busy elsewhere and Jane was left to her own devices.  She was primed for a good time, and was pretty sure she wasn’t going to find it staring at Face Book or working on the current blog she was struggling to write.  All of sudden her best friend instant messaged her.  “What are you doing?” Jane quickly typed in “Absolutely nothing.”  “Want to go to a concert at the coliseum?”  Jane didn’t even have to think twice.  She immediately typed in “Yes” and made plans for her friend to pick her up in 15 minutes.

          She raced to her bedroom,  threw on the perfect outfit, styled her hair, applied fresh makeup, grabbed her purse,  and was at the curb waiting when her friend drove up 15 minutes later.  In route to the coliseum Jane asked her friend who was playing and where their seats were located.  She really had no clue.  Her friend gave a little giggle and said with a grin “We are going to see Nickelback, and we don’t have tickets!”  Now Jane knew her friend was nuts. How in G0d’s name were they going to get in without tickets??  After a quick stop at a local bar and a double shot of courage better known as tequila the ladies were up for the task to try just about anything.

       The double shot of tequila had warmed Jane from the inside out.  She felt good, even better than good. She felt that she could do anything.  They approached the stage entrance trying to figure out a way to get in when a group of people came out.  Jane grabbed her friend’s hand and they mingled in the crowd coming out and slipped inside without anyone noticing.

      “Holy $hit! What do we do now?? We are so going to get kicked out of here!!”  Her friend smiled a wicked grin and grabbed Jane’s hand dragging her toward the stage where music could be heard and a crowd roared their approval.  A guard built like a Mac truck stopped them in route demanding to see their backstage passes. “Oh Lordy, this was it! This was the moment they would get thrown out.  Jane was about to admit they didn’t have backstage passes when her friend quickly explained they were told they would receive their passes once they were inside.   Looking frazzled the man whipped two passes out of his pocket and handed them over telling them to take their places on the side of the stage.

      The music was loud, and the beats of the drums deafening. Jane and her friend jumped up and down and sang along as the band rocked the crowd.    At precisely the moment that the lead singer sang “She looked so much cooler with something in her mouth”, Jane backed up a little to far and fell backwards off the stage bouncing off a speaker as she went.  Security rushed forward and the concert came to a standstill as everyone in proximity rushed forward to give Jane assistance.  Her cheek was bleeding profusely.  The ambulance was called, and Jane was rushed to the local ER where she received 27 stitches for her moment in the spotlight.  The fall had knocked her unconscious.  Between the tequila, the gash on her cheek, and the concussion she received Jane didn’t completely know how she came to be at the hospital, why she was bleeding, or even how she made it back home.  It was all a blur.

         If anyone asked, she simply had blacked out while sitting at her computer screen, broke a wine glass which cut her face, and received 27 stitches.  G0d only knew what happened to her underwear, why she was dressed to the nines for a quiet evening at home, or even what she had really done to her cheek to warrant stitches.  Sometimes the truth is a little hard to believe with the only souvenir that remains a fiery red scar and 27 stitches for Jane’s wild night with Nickelback.

The Accident

     The day had started much like any other.  My daughter was sitting in her high chair eating cheerios while she watched Sesame Street.  My cell phone rang.  I smiled as I noticed my husband’s name in the caller ID.  That in itself was odd.  I thought he would be delivering his load this morning and wondered why he would be calling me at that hour.  I answered bracing myself for a long tirade of complaints about how many trucks were ahead of him, how long he might have to wait, and how slow they were.

       Even though the caller ID said it was my husband, the voice that greeted me was unfamiliar.  I was confused.  Who was this??  How did they get my husband’s phone?  In an instant terror filled my heart as the voice explained he was with the state police and there had been an accident.  My husband was going to be OK, but he had been transported by ambulance to the local hospital.  My mind shut down.  How could this be happening??  My husband should be at his destination delivering his load!

       According to the officer, he never made it.  He had been traveling down a two lane road early that morning.  The air was thick with early morning fog.  All of a sudden he came upon a slow moving pickup truck with utility trailer traveling ahead of him with no lights on.  With oncoming traffic, there was no where for my husband’s semi truck and trailer to go.  None of the options were pretty.  The first choice to continue and ram the pickup truck and trailer from behind was unthinkable.  The second choice to veer around to the left and hit the oncoming car head on wasn’t an option either.  He did all he could do.  He sacrificed himself and took the ditch.  The truck flew off the road, lost control, and rolled finally coming to a stop.

          I asked directions to the hospital which happened to be over 3 hours away from home.  By the time I hung up, I was beside myself.  I did the only thing I could think to do.  Crying, I called my Dad.  I had to get to my husband!  I had to get to that hospital!  Within the hour my daughter was strapped into her car seat and we were on our way.  Tension hung in the car.  While in route my cell phone rang again.  This time it was my husband.  He was at the hospital and reassured me that although he was banged up, shook up, and sore he was essentially OK.  I had never been more relieved to hear his voice.  

        Hours later we left the hospital and took my husband back to the scene of the accident to retrieve his personal items from the cab of the truck.  I was horrified to find the twisted wreckage we discovered and was thankful that my husband had been able to walk away.  Being a trucker’s wife, you always live in fear of getting a phone call like that.  I come from a family where many of the men have driven truck.  When I was about 3 years old my uncle was killed in his semi truck and that day the family lost a husband, a brother, an uncle, a son, and a friend.   I can’t imagine getting a call and being told that my husband had been killed.  Accidents can happen in the blink of an eye.  They are unexpected, terrifying, and often lethal.  

         For those that choose to become an over the road driver it is always a possibility.  For the family that is left at home it is a reality that one prays will never come to pass.  It was hard to watch my husband go back to work after the accident.  Still, away he went.  Ever since that accident I will always have a gnawing fear in my gut that he may not return.  All one can do is put him in G0d’s hands, let him go, and hope for the best until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.