Flying

I can't read or think and I trying not to panic Riley. So I've written this. You can read it or not. I am not sure if it is a rational thing to do. To write this, right now. But writing grounds me. And I am up in the air right now.

In 1 hour and five minutes, the plane I am on will descend into Denver International Airport. Well, one hour and five minutes from when I wrote that last sentence. That’s too late.

It’s been three hours and fifteen minutes since a car sped through a red light and hit a car, that was carrying nearly a quarter of the people I call my own. 

My brother was driving the car. My sister-in-law was in the passenger seat beside him. Their five month old son, my fifteen year old daughter and her fifteen year old friend were in the second row of the car. 

They were in the air too. The car they were in was hit with such force, it flew up and then flipped over before crashing sideways onto the street. 

They were on their way home from my daughters’ first Pride. Riley and I are out of town. My brother, his wife and my sister said they’d take our girls to Pride. The aunts and uncle dressed up in rainbow clothes. My fifteen year old painted rainbows across my thirteen year old’s eyelids. 

They sent Riley and me pictures, and we both looked at each other, with tears in our eyes. This is what family is. This is what family does. How lucky we all are to have each other. How lucky our girls are, to be so loved. 

My thirteen year old and my sister had just pulled onto our street when my brother called, sirens wailing in the background. My sister drove as close to the wreck as she could and then she ran. 

So far, one of my people has been discharged from the hospital with a concussion, burns, bruises, and torn muscles. The other four are still being treated. One broken clavicle, burns, bruises, torn muscles, jaws and backs that zing. My fifteen year old just texted me to let me know they’re making her stay, because there is blood in her urine.

I cannot get the wifi on this plane take my searches seriously. I type, “What does urine in blood mean after car wreck.” A blue bar begins in the left corner of my screen and then stalls about a quarter of the way across. I need the blue bar to move all the way across the computer to give me that answer, but it won’t. Even after I fed United WiFi $10. I’m a kid in an arcade and the game took my money but won’t let me play. 

This makes no sense. I can post but not search? Whose priorities are these?

I did not feel it when my daughter went into the air, and I am trying not to think about that, about what not witnessing her in that very moment, even from afar means.

When she called me, three minutes after she was brought back down to the ground, I answered like this, 

“Margaret! My - “, and I was about to say “girl!” but she was screaming and the sirens were wailing. I thought there’d been a mass shooting at Pride.

“No, mom, no, the car! We were hit! It flipped over. I can’t breathe!” And then more screaming. 

Don’t try to breathe, then. That’s okay. Just tell me what you can see. She started naming the people around her. A man in crocs, an EMT, a police officer, her friend. Tell me about your friend, is she okay? (Her friend is 1/3 of her parent’s whole world. She had to be okay.) She’s okay, we’re okay, we’re not okay, we’re okay. Hey. You’re okay. Tell me what else you see. 

Margaret told me she saw some strangers who lifted her out of the car. Strangers saw them forced into the air, saw them come down. And then the strangers ran to the car, broke windows, pulled my people out.

People are amazing, Margaret! Yes, people are amazing.

But mom!

Margaret had to unbuckle her five-month-old cousin from his car seat and hand him up out of the back window. His name is Henry.

She started yelling again then, hyperventilating, because she couldn’t see the baby but she could hear him crying. They were in different ambulances. Is he okay, is he okay, is he okay. 

Can I tell you a story, Margaret? When I was six months pregnant with you, I got in a car wreck, a little like this. The roads were icy. Cars sliding down a hill.  One car, going too fast, slid quick, quicker, quickest until it crashed into you and me. I had to crawl out the other side of the car. holding my stomach. They took me to the hospital. Where they listened to you and breathe at the same time. They said, “Mama is doing fine and baby is too.” And then we sat there, for hours, while they observed you. I listened to your heart beat and tried to replace the sound of the crash with the sound of you. It’s been almost sixteen years! And here you are. And here I am. And there Henry is. Henry is okay. 

I could hear Henry crying too. That seemed good, babies who can wail are often okay. Or going to be okay.

The man who sped through the red light was drag racing. At 1:50 pm, in a residential area. This man never went into the air. His car stayed grounded. I have a picture of him. My brother sent it. It downloaded right before my plane took off.  I am looking at it right now. The man who sent nearly a quarter of the people i call my own into the air looks just fine. He is in the street, pushing his car to the side of the road. His hair isn’t even mussed. 

I showed this picture to Riley and said, “If he thinks his life is ruined right now, he has no idea how happy I am to help him know ruins.” This is not how I talk, like some cut-rate John Wick. And so Riley just said, “It’s going to be okay.” But I have no intention of letting that be true. 

I am going to send that man fucking flying. 

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