Hit

At 4:10pm on Memorial Day I was chopping red and orange peppers on my black granite kitchen island.  It was beautiful outside and company was arriving in less than an hour for a cook out.  The kids and Enzo the dog were playing out front with Tim.  As long as one of us is outside, we allow the front yard to be a play area.  I looked up and saw my Tim helping neighbor Tim carry a Thule box from their house across the street to ours.  As I watched them maneuver the awkward box down the neighbor’s driveway, Tim Shea’s expression changed to one of complete fear.  He yelled something, dropped the box and started running toward our mailbox.  My Tim followed suit.  Enzo started barking.  I dropped my knife and sailed out the front door and down the steps.  I didn’t know what happened, but something was very wrong.

I saw my seven-year-old son sitting up in the grass by our mailbox screaming in terror like I’ve never heard him scream.  There was a car parked in the middle of the road and a strange man saying “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry” over and over and over.  No one was touching Rylan.  It was like there was a force field around him.  I kept screaming, “What happened, what happened?”  The strange man told me he hit him.  I didn’t know what that meant.  My husband and I were investigating our son’s body – every inch of it and were so confused about what happened to him.  He had cuts and scrapes and a gash on top of his head and he couldn’t stop screaming.  I held him best I could since he doesn’t like to be touched.  The man kept offering me his license.  I didn’t want it and I was confused why he was doing that.  Rylan kept apologizing for making a bad choice and asking if he was in trouble.  I didn’t understand.  I told him no and that everything was going to be okay.  I didn’t know what I was talking about.

Tim Shea was on his phone telling me he was calling an ambulance.  He seemed very sure.    He saw what happened.  My Tim wanted to bring him to the ER at Children’t Hospital.  There was a crowd of people around us with very scared faces and I was confused where they came from.  They heard the impact and the screaming, but I didn’t understand that.  Randy took Reagan who was hiding on the couch in our gray living room.  All alone.  She saw the whole thing it turns out, but I didn’t know that.  I put Enzo in his crate and Tim Shea was in our house closing things up.  We put Rylan in the silver BMW because the Pilot was torn apart in the garage.  I sat in the middle of the backseat with half my body on Reagan’s car seat and half on Rylan’s.  He kept screaming and asking if he was going to die and apologizing and asking if I was mad and telling me that this must all just be a bad dream.  I was so confused and that’s all I could do is touch the section of his arm that wasn’t scraped and assure him that everything was going to be okay.  My heart was breaking as the words of pure terror were coming out of his mouth.  Tim just drove.  Really fast.  I remember praying that we would get there safe since I wasn’t even in a proper seat.

Tim carried our frantic son into the ER and I told them in my calmest voice that he was hit by a car.  They sprung into action and had him in a neck brace and on a board within 3 minutes.  That didn’t aid in his screaming.  I held his hand and Tim held his other hand as we wheeled him to a room.  We talked about what pictures they should paint on the ceiling because it was so bare.  He decided Word Girl through his tears.  He was talking and making sense and I remember that felt good to me.  A doctor came in immediately and started checking his skinny little body out. She did neurological tests, looked at his body for tenderness and injuries, asked him a lot of simple questions and made him tell them if certain spots hurt when they touched him.  He said yes to everything and I had to explain that it always hurts him to be touched because he’s a Sensory kid.  I had them ask if it felt “uncomfortable” or if it “hurt.”  There’s a difference with Rylan.

They decided to do neck x-rays and a urine test to make sure there was no internal bleeding.  They both came back normal.  From what they could see, the injuries seemed to be superficial.  We were so confused.  Maybe he just ran into the car rather than getting hit BY the car.  That must have been it because it seemed like he fell off his bike given the injuries.  Our little man started to calm down when the doctor came in and started checking him out.  We got a movie player, which helped calm his nerves.  We stood over him holding the little screen since he wasn’t allowed to move his neck.  I remember allowing a few tears to fall as I laid over him and he got nervous that there was a leak in the ceiling.  That made me smile just a bit.  I didn’t want him to know that it was my tears.  I didn’t want him to know how terrified I was and how much I wanted to fall apart.

They wanted to monitor him for 3 hours, so we watched a lot of movies and the nurse took her time cleaning and dressing every single scrape. A police officer came to file a report on the accident and Rylan got nervous he was in trouble.  Of course he did.  I left the room to call my parents.  I was the only person outside the hospital and I stood in the middle of the sidewalk and fell apart.  As soon as I heard my dad’s voice, I let the fear and confusion and terror of the past 2 hours exit.  I made sure to tell him that everything was okay first.  I remember my mom told me to take a deep breath and try to calm down but I didn’t want to calm down.  I was terrified and confused about why we were going through another trauma with our kids.  We just walked through a trauma and we were finally getting to a point of normalcy again.  This brought back the impossible heavy feeling and the confusion.  I didn’t feel angry but I felt the weight of the world trying to land on me.  I was having a really hard time shaking it off.

We were calm the last hour at the hospital.  Rylan was acting more like himself and making the nurses laugh.  They gave him meds to help with the pain and told us to expect to administer round the clock pain relief for a couple days.  Tim and I just stared at each other.  Blankly.  They cleared us to home around 7:30 and we took our battered dude home.  He was asleep within 3 minutes in the back seat.  I got Reagan from our savior neighbor friend’s house and learned that she saw the accident.  She told her little friend all about it and asked me immediately “why dat mean man runned over her brudder.”  Our house was filled with all the neighbors who were standing in our driveway post accident and friends who were walking by as we got home.  Rylan sat on the rug in the kitchen and allowed everyone to look at him and see firsthand that he was okay.  I think they all needed to do that.  When they left, we had Reagan sit with him to see that he was okay.  She hugged him and told him she loved him and we put her to bed, anxious that she would have nightmares that night.  She didn’t.

I laid with Rylan a long time as he fell asleep.   I cried a lot and I made peace with God.  God and I have had our struggles lately, but my son was laying next to me and I knew that was due to grace.  We called Tim Shea to let him know Rylan was okay.  They had moved out of their house for good directly after the accident.  That Tuni box was the last item they were moving.  He told us what he saw and our stomachs dropped.  I about vomited and the original fear came rushing back.  Rylan ran out because he couldn’t see past the neighbors big camper and because he’s our impulsive child.  The car couldn’t see him past the camper.  David, the driver, had enough time to swerve a bit, but our son hit the hood, bounced off the windshield and flew through the air onto the pavement.  It wasn’t as simple or “clean” as we envisioned and wanted to believe it was.  It was every parent’s worst nightmare.  Tim Shea had to witness that, as did our daughter.  Tim and I were immediately grateful that we didn’t see it, but the image alone was haunting.

The driver had left a card in our front door with his info in it.  Lovely man.  He came that night to fill out the police report and walked us through the accident.  He said, “Well, you know your son jumped before I got to him and that caused him to land on the hood of my car.  That’s what saved him.”  We stared at David in disbelief.  Rylan doesn’t jump.  He’s not athletic or agile.  He wouldn’t know to jump.  David insisted that he jumped like a little frog and we all sat in silence.  It made sense.  His legs should have been broken if the car hit him.  I’ll stop there as far as what could have happened.  Our son jumped and that explained why he was okay.  His injuries happened when he hit the pavement.  David suspected that would be the case based on what he saw and felt relief afterwards knowing that was the case.  We didn’t know.  In those moments of silence with David, I looked up, breathed and thanked God for literally picking my son up with his mighty hand and placing him on David’s car.   God and Rylan’s guardian angel (Gabriel) were working overtime in that flash of space and they lifted our son up with super hero jumping powers that Rylan now holds very dear and proud.  I wonder if Reagan could see God’s hand in that accident.  I wonder if Rylan felt those super hero powers in him as that car made contact with his fragile body.  God wasn’t IN that moment of time but he sure as heck was OVER it and he proved to us that he sees us every moment and has his hand right there waiting.  Without his hand, I cringe at the thought of where we would be today.  It still haunts me when I pause to think.

My mom flew in the next morning for a planned visit, which was ordained.  Rylan took a day to recover and get back his normal self, but he did. We headed to a ranch in Wyoming owned by Tim’s work and had 2 days to recover and put the real world aside.  That was divine.  I was able to put the accident in a make-believe box and close the lid for 2 days.  Our kids ran and laughed and took in the beauty around them.  They rode horses and ate good food and explored rivers and forests and cabins.  We could all breathe.

We’re home now and the breathing part isn’t as easy, but that’s a whole nother post.  Our son is okay.  We’re still processing that, but we were handed a miracle and we’re eternally grateful for that.