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(Note: This was written on January 12, 2015, three months after the accident. It was originally published on my storiesfromanurse blog, but I’ve decided to move it here.)

I told myself I’d never write this.

I didn’t want to.

It was just a regular day. October 30. I’d gone to town to meet my parents. I can remember about worrying how to do my hair, and deciding to wear it braided back into a bun. I was wearing jeans, a long sleeved purple shirt, and an infinity scarf that had become my new favourite-black, with little dainty purple flowers. It all seemed so significant then.

I met them at Pizza Hut, which is odd for us, since we don’t really eat out all that much. At one point during our lunch, we were all drawn to the white out conditions outside the restaurant, any of us unable to even see across the road. But it cleared, and I didn’t give the weather a second thought.

I dragged my Mom into a shop of furniture to look around at some reclining chairs, as I was in need of more furniture for my apartment. We giggled as we tested out a few chairs, before deciding on a brown leather chair. I briefly left the store to take my Mom to her appointment, before I was returning to the furniture store. The saleswoman informed me that the delivery truck was heading to SL the next day, and they’d be able to deliver it for me. I would’ve said yes, had it not been for the fact that I was going to my parent’s home. I assumed I’d have the chair delivered the following day, but decided to suggest that if they could get the chair to come in two pieces, I could take it in my car by myself. The saleswoman assured me it wouldn’t be a problem, and told me to take my car around the back. It wasn’t until I was waiting around the back of the building that I realized how much a chair, even if it was in two pieces, would take up space in the back of my car. I started to arrange the shopping bags that we’d already acquired. It took some rearranging, as I realized that I still had a few personal belongings in the car with me, as I’d recently moved-my fishing pole, and a set of weights. The seats didn’t fold all the way down, so I made do, and packed all our purchases in the small space between the now folded seats and the floor. The salesman that came out to help me made a rather humoured remark when I pulled out my fishing pole, which I was carefully tucking back in after he’d packed in the chair, which was now in two pieces.

My Mom was chuckling when she hopped in my car after her appointment, the pair of us bemoaning the fact that our ‘shopping space’ had more or less been chopped in half. There certainly wasn’t much room for anything else. But, naturally, being girls, we decided to limit ourselves to one more store. I don’t recall what I bought, but she bought a box of mini chocolate bars for my Dad to give his students the next day-as Halloween was fast approaching.

I don’t normally drive with a coat on, so I took it off. My phone is usually in my jeans pocket, but for whatever reason, I had tucked it into the pocket of my coat. Knowing my Mom is a bit  unfamiliar with electronics, I also took the liberty of hooking my iPod up to the stereo, in case we should want some music. It wasn’t snowing overly hard when we left town and headed home, but I remember slowing down a few times because of the weather. I’m not sure if it was our first ‘real’ snow of the year, but was certainly my first time driving in the snow this year. Our conversation ranged from anything to work to life, so typically as our conversations normally did. At one point our conversation wandered to discuss family friends that had recently suffered a loss of their Mother, who had passed away suddenly because of a highway related accident. Our conversation drifted then, to what, I’m not sure.

And that’s where things change in an instant.

One minute I’m talking with my Mom, and then next, I’m thinking, “That truck is too far over the line. It’s too far…”, and in a split moment, I’ve sent my Mom and I down a path that neither of us can return from.

I can remember spinning and rolling. Rolling, and rolling, and rolling. The sound of metal crunching and glass shattering. Dirt and things are flying, and I shut my eyes because all I can think is, ‘I don’t want to see this’. Someone is screaming, I had initially thought it was my Mom, but days later, and after dreaming it, I realize that I’m the one that screams. And the scary thing is, I’m not sure what I was screaming. It seems a lifetime, but the car eventually comes to a stop. I don’t know where we are, just that I’m hanging from my seatbelt. The roof between my Mom is dented down, and I can’t see her. It takes me a moment to realize that I don’t have my glasses, but I spot my Mom’s legs. There’s a moment where I can’t find my voice, but I remember asking, “Mom? Mom?”. I could swear that it takes her ages to answer me, and there’s a heart stopping moment where I think, “…I’ve killed my Mom”. I want to look, but I don’t. And then, there’s a blessedly sweet moment where I see her legs move, and I think, “Everything will be okay. She’s alive”. In that moment, I’m prepared to die in a ditch, and all I can think is that everything is okay, because she’s okay. In true Mom fashion, she says, “I can smell gas..shut off the car”, and I do that. I can remember apologizing over and over to her, though I’m not sure why. My momentary fear disappears, and all I can ask is, “Can’t anyone see us? Why isn’t anyone else stopping?”

She tells me that she thinks she can crawl out the front windshield. I can see her move around, and a moment later she’s gone. Panic begins to return. I’m stuck in the car, hanging from my seatbelt. At one point I remember resting my hand on the bent down part of the roof and pushing against it. ‘Maybe Dad can fix it’, I think, but my thoughts are flickering so fast I can hardly keep track of them. I can hear voices outside of the vehicle, and decide all at once that I have to get out, and quickly. My seatbelt takes some tugging, but it pops off. Somehow I pull my legs to my chest and slip out of the seat, and before I know it, I’m staring out of a broken windshield and there’s a man hurrying down the hill towards me. I don’t know who he is, but I remember reaching for him and he grabs my forearms. I think he tells me to just wait, but I get a whiff of gasoline, and that has me lurching towards the open windshield.  My hips get stuck on something, but before I know it, I’m kissing the snow before being pulled to my feet. “Is there anyone else?” I remember him asking.

I remember telling him that I’d lost my glasses, and my Mom had as well. He asks if we have coats, and I tell him that mine is somewhere in the car. There’s a moment where I feel utterly helpless, standing in the snow and shivering. Everything is blurry.

“Oh, here’s a pair of glasses” he says as calm as can be, and I feel something pressed into my hand. They’re mine. Surprisingly, they’re only bent, otherwise completely intact. There’s nothing sweeter than putting them on and taking in the sight around me. It’s snowing, and I’m standing in a snow covered ditch. My car is laying on it’s side, passenger side down and facing back the way we’ve come. The roof is dented in, and there’s a window smashed. Half of my new chair now lies in the snow. “Sorry about your chair” he says to me.

“…It was in two pieces when it was stuck in there” I reply, but I can’t help but think it is ruined. As gruesome as the sight is, I can’t pull my eyes from the wreck. There’s a moment where I feel the need to check on my Mom. She’s half way up the hill trying to call someone. I remember grabbing her by the arms and asking her if she’s okay and bleeding anywhere. I think I pat down her legs for good measure, before the man is handing me a blue coat. It’s mine. It’s then that I realize how cold I am, and I tug it on, before telling the man that there’s a yellow fleece blanket in the car. I’m not a fan of the blanket, but it’s found a home in my car. He brings it to me, and I wrap it around my Mom’s shoulders. We hug and cry, and cry some more. My Mom turns into a chatty mess, while I can only turn back towards the car and stare at it. I’m vaguely aware of the conversation behind me, and it’s later when I realize that my left shoulder is throbbing, and my fingers are tingly. The man introduces himself as a truck driver that was a ways behind us. He claims he hasn’t witnessed it, but that someone radioed to him that a car had gone in the ditch. Another car stops, and two men hop out. Before I know it, hands are gently guiding me to sit in the backseat of a warm car. It’s heavenly, but at the moment, I don’t want to be anywhere near a car. They give us water and napkins, but all I can do is cry. Everything hurts. And all I can think is, ” I almost killed my Mom”.

It feels like forever, but soon there’s flashing lights, and I feel sick. The car door directly beside me opens, and a familiar face looms into view. “Oh my God, it’s you….” the paramedic utters. I can’t help but have similar thoughts. Back when I was in high school,l I spent an entire day with the paramedics, job shadowing them. I know this lady well. She calls me by name, and I nod vaguely. “Where are you hurt?” she asked, and I’m left struggling between being a broken mess, and trying to return to reason. My shoulder hurts and up into my neck. Moments later,  she’s gently unwrapping my scarf from around my neck, and she’s wrapping a neck brace around my neck in it’s place, and I can’t help but cry all over again. She tucks the scarf into my hand, and I clench it. One of the drivers from the second car is told to hold me still, and as much I want to thank him, everyone, I can’t speak a word. A cop is sliding into the front of the car and asking for our information. They take my Mom out of the car first, and I can’t help but feel panicked again. I don’t want her to leave my sight, because I’m afraid I won’t see her again. The paramedic returns and asks if I can move, and she’s coaching me out of the car and onto a stretcher. Suddenly there’s hands everywhere, gently guiding me to lay back. I want to do things on my own, but I surrender. There’s a moment where all I see is white snow flakes drifting down, behind it an inky black sky, and then there’s strange faces leaning over me. They tie me down onto board and stretcher, and all I can do is close my eyes and wonder if this is all a cruel nightmare. The stretcher bumps and slides, and the hands return again to lift the stretcher into the ambulance. There’s an odd amount of comfort in seeing familiar things, like medical equipment, but I can’t help but panic when they begin to hook me up. Oxygen tubing is applied, and I feel the familiar squeeze of a blood pressure cuff on my arm. I’m vaguely aware of my Mom chattering away, and I recall thinking, “…Why’s she so chatty? She’s probably in shock”. The paramedic returns and says, “Where’s that smile?”. I know she has good intentions, but I can’t help but have the overwhelming urge to tell her off. I don’t feel like smiling, and I’m not sure I’ll smile again.

The male paramedic takes over, and even if he is polite and trying to engage me in conversation, all I want to do is close my eyes. They put two styrofoam blocks on either side of my head, which drowns out most of the conversation. My shoulder throbs, and I try to shift myself around on the stretcher board to get comfortable. It’s then that I realize my shoes are soaking and my feet are frozen. And I have to pee.

The ride feels as if it goes forever, before we’ve stopped and they inform my Mom that they’re taking me into the hospital first. The lights in the hallway are bright, and suddenly there’s two strange faces leaning over me. “I’m Julie and this is Angie” one tells me. They set to doing my blood pressure and checking me over, and someone is pulling off my shoes. “My, you’re awfully dirty” one of them remarks, and she’s dampening a warm cloth and repeatedly cleaning my face. I must be dirty, I think. Someone pries my scarf out of my hand, and I reluctantly give it up. The Doctor is in then, and he begins to check me over. It isn’t until they’re helping me off the back board that I feel a sharp pain in my lower back. I can already hear my Mom before they inform me that she’s in the room beside me, and it’s hard not to at least smile at the amount of her chatter. The Doctor is deeming me okay to move around on my own, but it takes me a full five minutes to attempt to undress myself. Angie is in to help me out of my bra and into a gown. A girl from Xray is there, and I’m helped into a wheelchair. I’ve never been in a wheelchair before, but I can’t help but feel like I’m going too fast as she wheels me down the hallway and to get a series of X-rays done. When I’m eventually returned to my room, I find a bed full of gravel and glass. The Xray lady is kind enough to clean it off, and I’m helped back into bed. My Mom is taken for X-rays, before she’s poking her head through the curtains. She’s still without glasses, and shows me a nasty looking bruise on her shoulder. My shoulder is simply red and stiff. The give us a snack, and we wait. The Doctor returns and informs me that my X-rays all look good, and that we’re free to go home as soon as we have a ride.

We wait, and eventually my Dad comes, in the company of a family friend. He’d been roughly five minutes ahead of us on the highway, and had been in the process of unpacking the car when he’d heard the sirens scream out of town. “What are the chances?” he told us he thought, before he was going off to bible study at his friend’s house. He’d assumed we’d be right behind him, and would be home when he came home from bible study.

I remember feeling utterly relieved and miserable at the sight of him. All I could think was, “I almost killed your wife”. Weeks prior, my Dad and I had gone to the viewing of our family friend that had passed away, and had had a discussion about losing someone. All I could do was cry all over again. “How do you feel?” I was asked, to which I remember replying, “…Like I almost got hit by a truck”.

“You don’t do things half assed, rock and rollio” my Dad’s friend chuckled, and I found myself squashed in a hug. My Mom and I were then both faced with hopping in the back of the car, something I don’t think either of us was ready for. Every little bump felt like a roller coaster, and I had to close my eyes every time a vehicle passed us coming the other way on the highway. My Mom was still oddly chatty at that point, recounting the details for my Dad and his friend. “We didn’t seen anything on our way through. Where was it?” my Dad asked.

I couldn’t tell him where. It wasn’t until we were coming up the slightest incline, where I felt my heart race. “It’s here. Right here by that sign” I remember saying, and my Dad was pulling over. He and his friend hopped out, and sure enough, down in the snowy bank, was the wreck. I couldn’t bring myself to get out of the car, before I was needed to tell my Dad where I thought my things were. I was still missing my wallet, a back pack, our purchases, and my Mom was still missing her glasses. Each trek up and down the hill came with new finds-a bag of groceries here, my back pack, and other belongings. At one point I came down to hold a flashlight, and peered down through a window and into the vehicle. To my astonishment, my wallet was wedged between the remaining piece of the chair, and sitting atop it-my Mom’s glasses. More belongings were placed in my hands-unbroken sunglasses, and my iPod. I remember chuckling then, a little amused to see it was playing. Curious, I flicked it on to see, astonished to see what it was playing- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJWzEDj3qIM . It wasn’t until later that night when I played the song, that I realized the full significance of the song.

It was then that I heard my name being called, and I was hurrying as best I could down the hallway to the vehicle. “…I think your chair is going to be okay” my Dad informed me. “…It’s actually wedged in…and being held about six inches above a pool of gas” he grinned. We were able to pack everything into the trunk of my parent’s car, and we were heading home, the wreck behind us. Save for some bent glasses (and the vehicle), the only thing we lost was a bag of bananas, yogurt, and a chocolate bar.

It’s been 74 days.

Sleep is still uneasy and restless at times. I still have nightmares, and I wake up sweating and feeling panicked. And if I think about it enough, I still get the feeling that I’m being rolled and tossed around like a rag doll. My left shoulder now makes a faint clicking sound if I lift it a certain way, and my lower back and hips still ache. I also have a rib that likes to pop out from time to time. Driving hasn’t been easy either. I find myself gripping the steering wheel for dear life, and I hold my breath every time a vehicle comes the other way. The other day I found myself feeling ill when I was pumping gas and caught the smell of it. As much as the physical injuries have healed, I find it harder to deal with the emotional and mental scars left behind. Things just aren’t the same. Some might not consider it life changing, but I certainly do.

I’m utterly glad it didn’t end differently, and for what God did do that snowy October day.  Every day is certainly a challenge, even though that challenge some mornings is simply getting out of bed. I think what I’ve found most difficult, has been relating to people. I never felt good with words before, and usually did better with writing. These days, it seems a struggle to write any feelings down, as if I’m scared what I’ll have to read. I’ve written a few times, but I don’t plan on letting anyone read those thoughts. At least, not for awhile.

This is not how I pictured my life. Or what I would’ve thought God had in store for me. Odd, I think, that I think that I should  know what God might have planned. Silly, really. We always hear that God’s plans are infinitely more wonderful than ours could ever be. More wondrous than anything we could ever conceive. But it’s truly hard to look at something like this and wonder how this could be used for His glory. And How He’s going to be faithful.

I know some will look at this and ask, “How can a loving God allow this?” How can a loving God allow pain? Sickness? War? Death? They struggle with  the fact that either He is not a God of love and is indifferent to human suffering, or else He is not a God of power and is therefore helpless to do anything about it.

When I think about where I was emotionally and mentally right after the accident, it was certainly a place I’d call dark. Emotionally, mentally and spiritually dark. I couldn’t see beyond my circumstances and I didn’t want anything to do with God. I was angry with Him (still am somedays). And all I could think was, how, how after everything-struggling through high school with bullies, fighting my way through university, and then being unhappy with my life even though everything had ‘worked out’, how God allowed this to happen to me. It felt like the end of the world (though, I’m more than aware that there’s plenty of people who suffer worse than I do), but to me, this felt like utter abandonment. I’m not proud of the things I thought. It felt like I was floating through life before, and then it suddenly felt like I was drowning. There was a song I heard a few days after the accident, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4khb1PMvbfU, that even if I felt it in my heart, I couldn’t bring myself to sing the words. It gripped me to the core. I wanted to scream it.

I didn’t want to be here. At all.

I feel guilty, even now, for what I thought and wrote. But even now, it’s still a dark, lingering shadow in the corner of my mind that I can’t quite escape. I couldn’t help but think, “God, if you’ve kept me here, then save me. Don’t leave me here alone….help me to stay here”. And that was all I could do.

“God, Give me what it takes to stay”

And through the dark thoughts and the sleepless nights, came the most beautiful glimmer of hope. A song I couldn’t bring myself to sing, became words that I sobbed and prayed. I was able to sing it one day. And I sang it. I sobbed my way through it, but I sang it. I wouldn’t consider myself a good singer, but that moment was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

I can only think of that line from that Steven Curtis Chapman song, “Out of these ashes, beauty will rise”.

But this song!

It unearths those dark, lingering thoughts and races unashamed and guiltless to put them at God’s feet. It’s like being able to gulp air after drowning. A fresh of breath air.

I’m speechless. Even if I may have thought those things, I can’t help but feel completely overwhelmed. the accident could have been very, very different. People look at the pictures and get this look of wonder. “How?” they ask, “How are you alive?”. “How are you not more injured?”.

It never occurred to me just what an opportunity God had placed in my trembling hands. How? God is the only remarkable answer. And that overwhelms me.

What an adventure this has been. So often, I think we as humans get caught up in watching everyone else’s ‘adventures’ around us, that we ignore the grand adventure that God has set us on. We might have valleys and mountains to overcome, but it’s all part of something much bigger-even if we can’t see that.

If anything, take away from this, not that I’m struggling, but just how faithful God is. And when it seems like He’s up to nothing, He’s up to a whole lot. It might take days, it might take months, or it might take years before we understand. Or, perhaps we never will. As people, I think sometimes we’re too often set in our own way. Life is miserable, nothing is going our way, and our plans that we’ve made aren’t meeting our deadlines. But God’s plans are so wondrously greater than our own.