She’s My Girl

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Posted by abbeylane on Mar 3, 2010 in Art, art, autobiographical, Blog, Family, family life, g.abbey, Gallery, Life, music, Music, philosophy, Photography, photoshop, poetry, Portfolio, prose, video, video playlist, writing, Writings | 2 comments

SHE’S MY GIRL
March 4th, 2010 | Edit | 1 Comment »
I don’t normally write much in this blog that is personal. But, recently, I have been challenged to write about relationships. I have a son, a daughter, a stepdaughter, and a grandson, all of whom I am very proud. But today, I want to talk to you about just one of my children, my daughter. I can still remember the day we brought her home from the hospital. She had the most beautiful big eyes I had ever seen. She was a great baby, very rarely cried with the exception of one little quirk. She hated shoes. From the time she was a month old, she would scream at the top of her lungs if we tried to put shoes oh her. So, we compromised, as all parents do, we let her wear socks. All was well with her world.
Fourteen years later, I would have given her all the socks in the world if that would have fixed what had happened to her world. She was a good kid, never on drugs, very stubborn, but otherwise, no major problems.. Above all, she was delightful to be around. She had the funniest way of saying things with her dead pan face that would just crack us all up. She was blessed with a few good friends, who still remain her friends today.
I hate to use the words, “on that fateful day”, but it was a life changing, horrible day for us all. She had been sitting at a desk doing her homework, like any fourteen year old would do on a school night, and I asked her, then told her to do something. I had been moving my studio and there were empty boxes everywhere. There was a young man, whom I had hired to help with the move as my son had gone off to college, and the two kids had been eyeing each other with cute little grins all evening. His job was to take out the empty boxes. It was getting late, the next day was a school day, and we were all tired. So I told her to go help him so that we could leave. At first, she begged off, saying she had homework to do, then she finally gave in and grudgingly went to help him load the empty boxes in the back of the pickup truck that I had. Being kids, and only wanting to make one trip to the end of the alley in the back, they filled up that truck to the brim. By the time they left to go that half block, my daughter was sitting on the tailgate of the pickup truck to help hold those boxes.
The driver was unfamiliar with the truck and he didn’t know the gas pedal stuck a tiny bit, so when he took off,, he gunned the engine a little, maybe to show off, as teenage boys are known to do, maybe it just got stuck. Who knows these things? Only the one who was there in that truck. That little gunning of the engine was all it took. She wasn’t ready and when he took off, she slipped off the edge of the tailgate, hit the base of her skull, flew up in the air and landed on her head on the concrete.
When he came running in to tell me that she was hurt, I honestly thought he was teasing, as they had been all day, then I saw the look on his face and I started running. She was on the ground trying to stand up. I took her face in my hands before I realized that the blood was rhythmically pumping out of her ear, taking her life with each beat. I knew then she was in trouble. I also knew she would not make it if we waited on an ambulance. I put her in that truck and drove like an insane mother to get her to the hospital in time. As fate would have it, we happened to be only a half mile from one of the best trauma centers in that part of the country. As I poured her into the hands of the nurses and saw the looks on their faces, once again, I knew she was very badly hurt.
Two hours later, the chaplain of the hospital came to me and said, so gently, “Why don’t you call your Dad and let him be here with you?”. My answer was to tell him that I didn’t want to bother him until I had something to tell him. He looked me in the eye and said, “You have something to tell him, call him now. She doesn’t have much time left.” My heart stopped. I know it didn’t beat for a long time. This was my baby, the little sister my son had gotten down on his knees for seven years and said, “Please God, bring me a little brother or sister.” She was already my miracle child, adopted at birth after only knowing she was alive for two days. How could this be happening?
My Dad, also a Chaplain at that same hospital, came when I called. I didn’t lose it until he walked in the door. At that point, a different sort of relationship took place. I went from being the strong, I will fix everything mother bear, to the child who just wanted her Daddy to fix it now. And he did.
I don’t know to this day how it happened, but he started walking the circle around the nurses desks, that made up the trauma center. It was no small circle, but quite long, and I didn’t realize what he was doing for a long time. I just thought he was upset and needed to walk.
He was praying.
He walked that circle ceaselessly for more hours than I could count. He never stopped and his lips never stopped moving. The doctors had already told us that she wouldn’t live until morning. But, you know, that sun peaked over the edge of the sunrise, and started climbing high into the sky, and she was still with us. I won’t say she was in good shape, but she was alive, had survived the night, with some very extreme pain and fear of the unknown. I didn’t leave the hospital. It was a beautiful hospital and I slept on the floor outside the door of the intensive care, just to be near her. They let me see her every other hour, but she did not know I was there, and when she did open her eyes, she did not know I was her mother.
She lived, or I wouldn’t be writing this story. Shortly after that accident, we went out for a drive on a country road and stopped at a beautiful little roadside stop. The trees were waving in the wind, and there was a stream at the base of the little patch of grass. As she walked away from me wearing that coat, it began to snow. And as it snowed, I saw her come back to me. She put her arms out to catch it and twirled around in a circle with glee. She was not only alive, she was happy. I sat on the tailgate of that same truck and painted this painting of her.
You can see in the way she is standing that she is happy. It was a defining moment in our lives and our relationship. She had always been a “Mama’s” girl, but at that point we both knew it. We knew that we were bonded for life and her life was only beginning. I was happy and sad, and that painting has tears on it. Her live was changed irrevocably that day she flew off that truck, and so was mine.
I’ve never told this story publicly before, but it is time.. My daughter is grown now, lives a free life that she enjoys. She still has problems from the accident and always will, but she is still the most joyous person to be around. She has a sense of humor that can turn every one in the room into peals of laughter. She has a determination to live a normal life that would make most Generals look like babies. She is a survivor and I am so proud of her.
She is My Girl.
She’s My Girl

© Abbey Lane
2010