I'll never forget the smell.
Gunpowder and regret.
Acrid burning fabric and leather and paint.
Or the sound,
No-one ever tells you about the gunshot report
My ears rang for an hour after.
I wiped the blood from my eyes one
Two
Three times.
Shook to clear my head again
Thought maybe I could see better if I was outside
Maybe the light would be better.
Groping, slick fingers for the door handle I fell outside into snow.
Deep snow.
I could see the dark of the pavement, where it stopped 20 feet away
At least no-one can hit me here.
I couldn't see my phone enough to dial, so touched the button on my bluetooth headpiece - somehow it was in my ear, though
I don't remember putting it there. I don't know how I found it.
"Call Mom."
"Calling."
Nothing.
"Call Dad."
Nothing.
"Call 911."
"Emergency."
"Help."
I blinked. Blinked again to clear my vision, bobbing my head to make sense of something, but I couldn't see my hands in front of my face.
I panicked a little then, and jumped back in the car. Maybe I'd be warmer there. If only I could see.
But maybe no-one could see me there.
I knew there was a town, something with cell service a few miles back.
Maybe if I kept trying my phone, I could walk to where it would work.
I remembered somehow to keep the car keys in my pocket.
What happened? The road was dry, a cold and sunny winter day, but no reason for me to think anything would be wrong, other than the wisps of snow snaking across the ground in front of the car.
And then one-two, through and through. I made a 50 mile per hour right turn.
I countersteered to correct, but too late, or too far, or just somehow
Wrong.
I remember the car spinning left, the heave as the wheels suddenly touched asphalt instead of ice.
I remember thinking "Oh. Oh no." and closing my eyes so I couldn't see the hill coming too-fast toward me. The last clear thing I'd see for a very long time.
What happened? I remember the snap-bang of the airbag, and then a metal-salt taste in my mouth.
I stumbled a few times, in the snow. Panic and bright pain now creeping in the corners, I cried out.
I screamed.
Nothing.
I felt dizzier somehow, and realized that if I fell down in the snow, no-one would see me and...
I trudged back toward the wreck of my car, staying toward the white side of the dark-light line of the roadside in front of me.
I climbed back into my car. Into the only safety I could think of, and waited.
For what, I don't know. I don't know whether I was waiting to fall asleep, or for my vision to clear, or to wake up from whatever nightmare I was in. My face burned. I wiped thick blood from my nose again.
A car. Someone drove by.
I scrambled out of the car, waving and yelling, spinning in the white light.
If only I could see.
Someone else drove by, I thought - someone will see me. If I stay here, someone will see me.
Someone did.
I heard the car stop and I steadied myself.
"Hello," I said. "Can you help me?" As if it wasn't painfully, extremely obvious that I needed a lot of help.
A woman's kind voice answered "I'm Myla," and a hand touched my shoulder.
She had a pack of 4x4's in her car and handed them to me as she helped me inside. I insisted she grab my purse from the car, so that I'd have my insurance card at the ER.
The things you think are important, in moments like those.
I held my forehead together as we started down the road, apologizing for bleeding in her car.
She was so kind, quiet as I remember her now - probably quite shocked at my appearance. It was weeks until I could see the photos taken of me in the hours afterward. The CT scan report read "Severe swelling" "Orbital edema" and "multiple fractures", but thankfully "no evidence of intracranial bleed". I remember trying to smile at my ER nurse, and being afraid to open my left eye, for fear it would leak it's contents down my face.
I remember joking with the nice man who sewed my face back together. He tried to help me find the contacts I had been wearing, but both had been blasted out of my eyes. By that time, the whole world was just yellow light and darkness. Too much bleeding into both eyes to see, I simply kept them shut.
I let the fear come through, once, but Myla told me "keep it together." And I did.
No use in losing my shit.
What had happened? I didn't remember how I got in the elevator, to come back from the CT scan. I didn't remember the scan.
I called my mom "I've been in an accident. I'm ok," and the measured panic in her voice.
I called my husband. My marriage had exploded a week prior, and I ran a thousand miles away. Here in the ER, I needed his help, and he jumped to help me. Whatever it took, he did it without question.
My dad even drove down to get everything from the wrecked car.
Everyone I know surrounded me with love, with patience. They brought good food, flowers, cards (I couldn't read for a while, but they made me smile anyway) and love. I have never in my life felt so loved as in those weeks when I needed so much. I made a wrong left turn on that cold, bright day, and found boundless generosity, kindness, caring and love of a hundred people or more. I'll never be able to count those gifts.
Three years later, I'm happier than I have ever been. Back to driving through the snow with caution, but not panic. I'm performing and working and dreaming hard.
I think, so often - I get to do this again.
There are a hundred different ways that day in the snow could have gone differently,
But it is what it is, and as such I get to see another sunset.
I get to hold my lover's hand.
I get to breathe in salty ocean air.
I get to hear my family's laughter.
Enjoy my grinning dogs.
Feel warm, loved, happy.
I'm about to celebrate another New Year's Eve - the 4th since then, and it still reminds me to be grateful,
So, so grateful.
For another chance "to be alive and breathing."
For a chance to do it right.
For anything, and everything.
I'll never forget that day.
Blood and gunpowder and change and heartbreak and gratitude and charity and generosity and everything that came from that split second.
