The Accident

I started participating in a group for people who have experienced the traumatic loss of a loved one – a loss that happened suddenly, without warning. It is a defined program. Ten weeks with specific activities, approaches. Last week, we were working with imagery. What are the images that seem to replay like a skipping record – over and over in our minds as we think about the actual event that led to the loss of our person.

When Jackson’s accident happened, there was a news helicopter and many witnesses. It happened on the corner of a busy intersection around 5:15pm on a Monday afternoon. I looked at one photo on my phone via a news posting the day after which I am grateful didn’t show much. I realized that I really didn’t want to see the full impact of the accident. I didn’t want to see the damaged motorcycle. I didn’t want to see where his body lay. As we worked with our own images in group, I sketched what I imagined the scene looked like – all stick figures and blob looking vehicles. (I thought about how disappointed he’d be in my drawing. His own artistic ability would have made for a much more detailed and clearer picture.) I was grateful during this exercise that I had chosen to not see more photos – that the haziness of this image in my head was much better that the actual scene.

I put down on paper three pictures during this activity. I drew the two of us at home just before he left the house that day. I think about that last conversation often, though the details are fuzzy. I think about how one more sentence in our conversation could have been the difference between his life and death. I think about the decisions I made that day before I was sitting in the living room that afternoon – that if made differently, I may have not been there to chat with him and his timing would have been changed. I think about how I could have jumped up to hug him goodbye before he left, and that the 30 seconds that would have taken could mean he’d still be here today. There is no bottom to this rabbit hole.

The second image I drew was my stick figure and car blob picture of the scene – what I imagine was happening and how the neighborhood folks gathered at that corner, their day interrupted by witnessing this tragedy. I drew the woman who sat next to him where he lay on the ground. A good Samaritan who shared her presence with him while waiting for the first responders to come. I don’t know who she was though I hope one day to find out. I hope one day to thank her for being with him at the end.

My final image is the only one that is clear in my mind. I drew Jackson as he was the last days of his life – when he was here but not here. I drew him in his hospital bed – tubes and IVs and neck brace and machines included. I drew him as he was in the limbo between being here as Jackson and when he was let go to move on to the light. It is the image that plays over and over in my mind like that broken record. It is the picture I see first when I wake in the middle of the night. I feel grateful that it is this that is clear and not the accident scene. Hard as it is.

The other day, I was driving down to see my sister in Gig Harbor who has stage 4 pancreatic cancer. She is just starting hospice, and her time is limited. It was raining buckets and traffic was barely moving. An hour drive ended up taking nearly two and a half hours. The weight of going to see her, the heaviness of the rain, the stories on NPR all made for a dark, reflective mood. (Asbestos in baby powder? Really Johnson and Johnson?! I pondered for a long time how often I used baby powder on my boys’ bums when they were little. I wondered at how much more my mom used on me – she being a big baby powder fan all her life.)

Eventually, there was a sign indicating that the limited flow of the traffic was due to an accident in the right lane of the freeway near the Tacoma dome. Forty or so minutes later in a bucket of rain, I inched toward the police SUV that was protecting the right lane from on-coming traffic. The cars slowed to near stopping as each driver looked to see what was in front of the SUV. (I remember a sociology professor referring to this as ‘fascination with abomination’ – our need to see the horror even when we really don’t want to.) As my own car rolled forward, I looked through the downpour for my own glimpse.

And, I gasped. From deep inside came a sound that startled me. All that was left there of the accident was a mangled motorcycle lying on its side and bits and pieces of it strewn across the entire lane. The image was so unexpected and so shocking. In the blink of an eye I was caught in that moment when the social worker from Harborview called me and my life was changed forever. I was seeing before me some other family’s image. I was seeing the remnants of their loved one’s life.

I couldn’t breathe as the traffic around me picked up pace and started moving at freeway speed. I couldn’t stop the wave of grief and anguish that ruptured deep in my belly. I was completely triggered. And driving on the freeway. In a down pour. The tears came, my vision was impaired, and I just barely made it over to the next exit which is the one I was planning to take anyway. Shaking and crying, I pulled into the first parking lot available.

I sat there for nearly 25 minutes – until I was calmed down enough to even think and my hands had stopped shaking. I took long deep breaths until I thought I would be okay enough to finish the drive to my sister’s house. Across the street – in an intersection surrounded by strip malls – I saw a McDonalds. And all I wanted in that moment was a chocolate shake – something cool on my throat and comforting to my body.

I pulled out of the parking lot and made it to the other corner only to realize I missed the mark and getting into the drive thru would take a serious amount of recalculating for my GPS. So, I just pulled back into the intersection to get back on the highway toward Gig Harbor. Only I also missed that mark, too. Somehow, I got turned around and was going in the completely wrong direction – heading deeper into Tacoma and away from the highway. I was so confused. Another 10 minutes before I got myself sorted and back on the highway headed in the right direction.

As I headed over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, I thought about the McDonalds near my sister’s house. I could stop there and get my shake. Yay! I was feeling relieved that this journey was nearly over. Until, again, I missed something. I completely drove passed the exit I needed to take. My brain still so impacted by the trauma of seeing that mangled motorcycle. Shit. I am on a highway that has fewer exits that are more spread out, and I am completely unsure if even taking the next one will get me where I am going. I was looking for a sign that showed the next exit. The first one I saw said, ‘Cemetery next right.’ Seriously. It wasn’t actually an exit; it was the entrance off the highway directly into the cemetery property. I pulled in. And I sat looking at the amazing view – a beautiful property full of fall colored leaves and perfectly manicured lawns. And I wondered. Do the dead really need such a beautiful spot? Does the beauty make a difference for the living?

The journey to my sisters ended up taking another 30 minutes. I missed another exit, got turned around once I did exit and was stuck on a long road with no turn options. My brain felt like a mass of cotton candy – fluff with no substance. Finding my way nearly impossible. Until I did – eventually.

As I finally pulled into the McDonalds near her, I noted that it had been 2 hours and 43 minutes since I’d left my house. In that time, I lost the opaque view of Jackson’s accident that I held in my head. Seeing that motorcycle on the freeway gave me a new image of what his looked like at the scene – gave me a new image of the severity of the impact. I can’t unsee it now.

My heart breaks for the family who got the phone call that day. For the people who will never be the same given the weight of their loss. I hope for their sake they didn’t look at any pictures…

I did order myself that milkshake. And a burger. Neither really worked to soothe as I’d hoped.

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