Part 2: The Impact

We were stopped again. Half in the lane, half not.

Adrenaline coursed through my veins as I tried to look around and take stock of the situation. I had to find my phone. We needed the cops and probably ambulances. I wasn’t sure if everyone was okay. I looked for it frantically as my Dad and I both asked if everyone was all right. My Mom and I both said yes and he was out of the car like a shot.

“Oh shit!” came out of my mouth before I’d even thought it completely. I know my Dad well enough to know that he was going to be dangerously livid with whoever hit us and put us in danger. It will always be his first instinct to protect us. Knowing this, seeing his face, the fury in it, and the way he strode the distance between the two vehicles only proved me right. I threw myself across the backseat and all the clutter, opened the door only to realize I’d lost my shoes somewhere in the car during the crash. No time to look. I was afraid of stepping on glass should there be any and causing more problems, but I was prepared to walk over broken glass to keep my Dad from killing this guy. He had no idea what was coming his way.

My Dad ripped open the man’s truck door, pointed at him, and yelled a few choice words, which I approved of somewhere in the back of my mind.

I screamed to my Dad from the door of our truck. I knew he didn’t hear me over the roar in his ears or see anything but the red in his eyes.

“Daddy! Don’t!” I screamed, and – whether he heard me or not – I saw his mind instantly start to operate normally again. He said a few more words to the guy and strode back to us.

He moved the truck to the side of the road as two construction workers sprinted to clear the path in the cones for us and check on us.

All of this, every thought, every decision, every action took place in under 90 seconds at most. My Mom called the cops and seemed a little foggy and confused about it all. I just thought she was in a bit of shock. I was talking to her as my Dad talked to the construction workers, assessed the damage, and handled things with the cops once they arrived.

“Stay in the car,” he told us.

Of course, my Mom didn’t listen. She got out and walked to see the damage. He told her to get back in the car and I saw her coming back to get in. I was trying to straighten things up in the truck and find where everything had landed. I looked up as my Mom started to pass my window. My Dad and the two construction workers were standing just a couple steps away.

“Tony,” that’s all she said, quietly. Just his name. Then her body loosened. Her knees buckled and all three men dove to catch her. She seemed semi-conscious for about 2 seconds before her whole body went completely limp and her eyes closed.

“Tina!” my Dad yelled as they lifted her into the truck.

“Tina!”

“Mom!”

“Tina! Wake up! Tina!”

I choked back sobs as I grabbed her head to steady her neck in case it was hurt. I contorted my body to reach the button to lay her seat back.

“Tina!”

I was fighting to stay in control, to help one of the construction workers call for an ambulance, and the other and my dad to wake her up.

To hear my Dad put so much love into one word – her name tore me apart. I knew, as if I had ever doubted, how much he loved her and that if anything were ever to happen to her his world would be wrecked – completely.

Through the fear of losing her, my mind registered what I was seeing, processed and analyzed it in a way that I do, and all I could think was, “Damn, to be loved like that.”

She came-to within two minutes or so. She put her hand on her head immediately and asked what happened, then said she felt sick. I grabbed the first thing I could think of and reach (Cooper’s food bowl, which I dumped out), and thrust it in front of her face, grabbed her hair and let her throw up.

All of this took about 3 minutes. Those 3 minutes changed my life. To be honest, the less than 10 minutes all of this took changed my life, but those last few – they put everything into perspective.

They were hands down the most terrifying moments of my life. To see my mom go so limp, like the life had literally just been sucked right out of her was horrifying. To hear my Dad, screaming her name with all the terror and love in his soul, to see it in his face just ripped my heart to pieces. I was terrified that my mom was going to die, that we were going to be one of those stories where everyone is fine until they’re not and pass out and they never wake up.

The minutes and hours after were spent contacting family and friends, keeping them updated, giving medical personnel every piece of information they needed and I had at my disposal.

I had to take care of my family. Nothing else mattered. All the melodramas of my life, the sucker punch I’d been hit with earlier that morning didn’t matter. What did matter was my family. We were alive and okay. Bumped, bruised, sprained, and concussed, but alive.

There are a handful of moments in our lives that change its course.  In an instant, this wreck most certainly changed mine. It put into perspective all the little things I’d been sweating lately and reminded me what really matters: family, love, and living life to the fullest extent in the best I can. I cannot express to you the countless ways in which this wreck has impacted my thoughts, my priorities, and my life as a whole, but if I can tell you one – it is that I tell those I love and care about exactly what they mean to me, regardless of time, space, or circumstance because who knows what life is going to hit us with next?