Trying to Inhale

I headed out to work with my folder stuffed, 3 backgrounds for the LaBelle journal ... listening to some music, moseying along, looking forward to checking emails, posting the backgrounds, then hitting my Friday. Same ole', same ole', but with a good attitude.

Then, on the freeway, 1/2 mile from my exit for work, and directly (and I mean DIRECTLY) in front of me, a blue car swerved from the HOV lane into the white car in the middle lane just beside me, but also in front of me ... both cars crossed in front of me (in the right lane), hit the masonry wall ... the white car spun around, the blue car rebounded off the wall and flipped three times that I counted and landed upside down in the center lane. The white car spun to a stop in the right lane, where I had just been. I had, meanwhile, slowed and then stopped in the emergency lane and immediately dialed 911. As I was on the phone with them, the driver of the blue car actually EMERGED ... a young guy, 21 if a day, in shorts, a loose t-shirt, Vans, bleeding all down his right side, his head bloodied, STAGGERING toward the concrete wall. Another car had stopped and those two people instantly went to him, guided him to a sitting position over near his vehicle, took his cell phone away (he was even trying to use THAT, although obviously disoriented and badly injured). I finished talking to DPS and then drove on.

As soon as I was past the crumpled vehicles and could no longer see that kid, I burst into sobs. Flashed on my oldest male child (his accident was 2 years ago, the 17th of this month) ...

I had wanted to get out of my car and go to that boy, but I didn't want to create yet another hazard, and I was blocking the only useable passing area (the emergency lane). I called 911, told them, they patched me thru to DPS, and you wanna know what the first question was out of both of those operators' mouths? "HOW MANY LANES IS IT BLOCKING?" Excuse me? I said, loudly, 'Look, you've got a kid here with obvious serious injuries! Talk to me about sending an ambulance and then we'll talk about lane blockage.' What the FUCK?!

I got to the office, crying like the Still Scared Mom I am and still wanting to hug that kid, not to mention my OWN sons ...

so maybe later I'll post my perky LaBelle backgrounds ... right now I am trying to clear my head of the vision of that young guy bloodied and staggering like he was, and being thankful he was alive and the other driver was alive and I was alive cuz it was 2 feet from my front bumper, all of it ... and that my son is alive,

and that's just plain enough.