The Day My Life Changed - pt 2

I'm writing this in bursts, little bits that I can handle without sinking me over the edge.  Last time, we left off here.


Quite honestly, at that time.. that day.. 13 years ago, I wasn't that paranoid about the roads.  It was a quiet road where you only met a car or two  normally and so I didn't have a worry in the back of my head. I just drove slower so I didn't hit any random piece of slush and have it pull me off the road.  How embarrassing.

And then it happened.

I came up over a small hill and what I saw took my breath away.

A car had apparently hit a random patch of black ice and somehow ended up spinning.

In front of me, suddenly there is a car spinning in circles but also still heading toward me.

I have no clue what speed he might have been going. I know that I only had time to scream "OH SHIT" and then I was hit with heat.

They say your life flashes in front of your eyes when you have a tramatic near death experience.  I can only say that that moment is forever paused in my mind.  The spinning car, my inability to do anything at all to stop the crash that was coming.

 I felt the heat of the airbag come out and smack me in the face.  The next thing I could see, my car was sitting in a field off to our right.  13 years and I still haven't figured out how we got tossed so far out into the field.  The other car was directly in front of me.

I am so thankful that some volunteer firemen /EMT were working on a farm near the wreck and heard the crash (another thing that surprises me because I don't remember any noise, just the heat and the spinning).  They called 911 and ran to help us.

One thing I will always regret- once I realized what had happened, I looked at my Gma sitting next to me.  Gma was in shock and completely out of it, so I kept screaming at her and trying to get her to snap out of it.  Never once did I worry about the kids in the back seat.  They were in their car seats so of course they were fine.  I was so naive.

Once Gma snapped out of her spell, other things slowly trickled in.  The sounds of my 2  crying and my 4yo saying Mommy.  I had a hard time turning around, and kept telling them "shhhh, it's okay.. you're okay."

Little did I know....