The pain was molten lava rushing through every molecule of my 17 year old body. Why won't my aching lungs allow a deep breath? Why is my back against the driver's side door? Oh my God, where are the children and Jill? I can barely see through my tears of agony, a man stumbling through the snow and freezing rain towards the mass of mangled metal that used to be Jill's 72 Impala. He really has two cans of Budweiser hanging from the plastic ringer, waving them around as he exclaims, ," Wow man, so cool man, so cool!"
My brain refuses to process my body is now immobile. I claw at the remains of the door. I must kill this drunken, selfish waste of human flesh! He killed my friend and her children! "Oh God!" I cry out from even more pain, if that's possible. My bones sound like a bag of marbles scrunching and screaming against one another.
From somewhere/nowhere a huge man emerges and asks if we need help. Thank God, I think as I greedily except his help. I ask if he can pull me from the car as I feel like I am crushing the children. I know the seat has Eric pinned and Dustin hasn't made a peep. I tell him I must move so the children can be removed. However, this was not going to happen. I would pass out from agony every time he pulled me an inch. This made him have to hold me half in and half out of the still running car. Thankfully, his friend showed up with a 5 gallon bucket for him to sit on.
Eric cries with unabandoned terror from the backseat, "What is wrong with my mom? Is she dead?!" Oh fuck. I have no idea! " Jill, wake up! Jill, you have to wake up!! It's gonna be okay, hunny. We will be okay." Shit, I hate lying to the kid but I think she is breathing. Dustin begins to softly cry for his momma too. I cannot imagine what a 7 year old and a 2 year old must be thinking right now. I'm not even sure what is happening!
A pale face, over Jill's shoulder in the passenger window is shouting louder and louder. What the words are, I do not comprehend. I yell back, "Get these fucking kids out of this car!" I am helpless, useless! My body a wrecked, broken joke, just like the car. I cannot die today! My mother is barely in the ground a year. Samantha and Butch would have only my dad. He is already remarried. I am the only one to save them from the world. Don't close my eyes! Mustn't close eyes.....
"Stop touching me! Where is Jill? Where are the kids? What the fuck is going on?" The paramedics are cutting my clothes. Shit, I just got these jeans 2 days ago. They won't let me move my head. Why? Jill makes a sound in her neck and throat as she simultaneously screams. She is alive. Thank God! Why won't they let me look at her? She is in the same ambulance, right next to me. Needles, tubes, blood pressure cuff and so many more things attached to my suffering frame. Jill comes and goes from consciousness. The 55 minute ride lasts an eternity. The pain never subsides.
Erupting through the frozen bay doors, crashing my gurney into an army of emergency personnel, I see my father, brother and sister. How can they already be here? How do they even know? "I love you guys! I'm so sorry!" I whimper as I see the look of terror in my siblings' eyes. I must be okay. I WILL be okay! I have to be here for them!!!
So many atrocities committed on my poor, broken body. All in the name of healing. Days become weeks as I train my " new, unimproved body, how to walk again. Jill's spleen is removed and her lungs heal. In fact, she comes to my room just 3 days into our stay. The boys are healing nicely at Jill's parents home in the country. Lawyers and law men come to inquire on details and contingency cases. Through all of the most painful recovery those great 80's doctors just keep filling those narcotics prescriptions. "Does it still hurt? Let's try these.They are stronger. If these don't do the trick, we can give you something better. Rest easy and concentrate on healing."
I never saw it coming or even had chance......that was 39 years ago. I didn't even know what addiction was back then and I wish I didn't know now. But here I am alive and recovered from the car accident and the pain meds. Not all drug addicts chose their paths some were chosen for them.
