RemembeRED: Crash

Crash.  The impact changed more bits and pieces than I can count.  Crash.  The tiny car I drove collided with an eighteen wheeler big rig, or so I’m told; I have no memory of it. 

Crash.    Waking in the ICU, only flickers and images of those three days remain.  Crash.  A week in acute care and a few realities set in.  People only kissing me on my upper left forehead – something was wrong with my face.  A cast had made a home on my leg.  Every part of my upper body cried out, if I tried to move.  A phone call from the CHP officer asking me if I remembered what happened – I didn’t.  Filling out his report, he told me I was not at fault.  Visitors, lots of visitors came in and out – family, friends, coworkers from my new job, and my new boss popping wheelies in my wheelchair at my bedside.  It hurt to laugh, but I smiled.

Crash.  Two weeks on the rehabilitation floor.  The mini gym on the lower level found me twice a day for Physical Therapy.  Once a day, I navigated through Occupational Therapy for simple tasks that weren’t quite as simple anymore.  While washing my thick curly hair without getting that cast wet was a necessity to learn, I argued with my therapist that burning my lacerated face to bake chocolate chip cookies to prove I could feed myself upon release was rather ridiculous as there was such a concept as a sandwich – simple and without the need for a hot oven scorching my face.  Crash.

Released from the hospital, still in a wheel chair and using crutches for stairs.  Crash.  Feeling years older than my young friends in college, even though we had celebrated the same number of birthdays, I took advantage of every physical therapy appointment over the next four months.

Crash.  I was twenty-one years old and almost every aspect of my life changed.  People always told me that I was lucky to be alive.  I always responded that I was lucky it wasn’t worse.

From a single crash came a completely new world.  While there’s some stuff I’d hand back in a heartbeat if I could, I’ve learned quite a hefty volume about myself and the world I live in.  I was looking forward to the future then and fifteen years later, I still am.

This week's RemembeRED prompt from Write on Edge is a tad different.  They gave us the word "Crash" to write on for ten minutes, polish, and publish.  It's flash memoir!

Do you have ten minutes?  Come write with us!

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