The Accident

I remember it as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. It was in 1978 on a hot summer afternoon in Marietta, Georgia. My children, Greg 4 and Tory 10, and I had been invited eat with some of my college friends who lived in an older neighborhood of quaint cottages bordered by a city park. What a safe place for the boys to play. I was in the kitchen when I heard the tires squeal in a vain attempt to stop which ended with the sound of an impact followed by screams. Above all the noise I heard Tory screaming, "It's my brother, it's my brother". Everyone in the neighborhood ran out, a panicked neighbor had picked up Greg's limp body without thought of injuring him further. When I reached him the back of his head was bloody and swollen. His breathing was shallow. We jumped in my friend's van to drive the two blocks to Kennestone Hospital. As we left, I shouted for someone to alert the ER we were in a private vehicle transporting a serious head trauma. Those two blocks were the longest journey I had ever taken, holding my precious boy in my arms, urging him to breathe with mouth to mouth resuscitation, willing him to live with my entire being.

The E.R. was expecting us as they met the van with a trauma team that took my injured child from my arms to the inner sanctum where the doctors do battle with death. Finally the attending E.R. doctor came out with the report, my child, my baby, was in a coma induced by a non-compressed fracture of the occiput. What I heard was, "he's alive". The endless wait had begun. My brother, Tim, came to sit with me through the long night. My parents were in the height of their square dance era so I was not able to reach them until they got home very late that night. Their response of "Do you want us to come?" has shaped the rest of my life as a parent. I never wanted my children to need ask for me to come, I always wanted them to know that I would be there for them just as my brother had been there for me.

The coma dragged on for three long days. Good news came in the form of no other broken bones, the skull fracture did not compress into his brain tissue, and the pneumonia caused from the impact was able to be treated. My parents came the next day. I maintained my bedside vigil sleeping in a chair, eating only what was put in front of me, and going to Greg's bedside with every sound heard in the room. Dr. Causey, the pediatrician, came to visit on the third day and commented that as soon as Greg was over the head trauma he would see to it that his ear was fixed. Ear was fixed? I looked at Greg and laughed with joy. Greg had always folded the top of his ear down and tucked the side of his ear in to his ear canal. He amused everyone with this trick but I was concerned that he would grow up looking like a bloodhound. He was awake and tucking his ear! Greg never went to Dr. Causey's office after that without him asking Greg display his ear tucking ability to everyone in the office.

We came home later that week to our tiny little apartment in downtown Marietta. It was a single building with 4 apartments, two up and two down. It was perfect for us, we were only living with three other poor families. My 80 year old neighbor, Bertha Millholland, looked after the boys as I returned to school and work. Momma and daddy decided that they could take better care of Tory in school than I could so they moved him off to Hampton to live with them until I graduated. Greg and I were alone. He had terrible headaches as the swelling surrounding his brain resolved, the doctor said that he could not sustain another blow to his head so he missed out on playing with other children. He and Bertha were fast friends. The only entertainment we could afford was to walk downtown at night after the heat of the day had dissipated. One night we were walking past the Marietta First Baptist Church when Greg said, "there is the man that was with me when I got hurt" as he looked up at the beautiful back lit stained glass depicting Christ with his arms held out. That moment I knew for sure that there was a loving father in heaven who held my child in his arms and nudged him back into this life where his days were not finished.

Greg has little, if any memory of the accident. He is a healthy, good looking 36 year old man with a mentally challenging job as a Chief Engineer on a ship servicing the oil industry. My memory has softened and become less painful over the years. After the accident it seemed as if I had an audio clip of the event embedded in my brain. At first the sounds of the accident would play without provocation through to the time I saw Greg's lifeless body, I could not stop the sounds. As time passed the sounds would only start with the squeal of a tire or the sound of an impact, I could not stop the sounds. Later the internal audio tape would start and I could mentally stop it. Thirty-two years later I do not hear the sounds of the accident but the memory will never leave me.