Violence and Love

I know this blog needs educational purpose, but some things are happening in my life that need articulation. I've been reading the cohort blogs. They speak of insight and emersion to the point of exhaustion. . . I was riding on rt 1 heading north between Aquia and the Stafford Courthouse. In the left lane, my wife and I were discussing the details of our afternoon. The radio was on.

My wife grabbed my leg in a gasp, and to my right a minivan careened, pitched, turned on end, and settled in a ditch facing south. The entire driver side of the green minivan caved. A survivor of a shark attack, where leg muscles have been ripped away only to heal leaving these deep empty caverns where sinuous tendons and muscles once thrived, the metal too was contoured and glass fractured.

We slowed and pulled to the left side of the road. We were three or four cars back. We didn't have a phone, but four other cars also pulled over. There was a moment, a brief moment of silence. I don't remember the radio. The loud crash was silent. And in that moment I hesitated, waiting to see if someone else would open their door and make their way across the center line. No one moved. I didn't move. The sheer violence paused us all.

I opened my door and found myself running across the road to the passenger side of the minivan. I was alone. "My name is Marc, are you OK? Is there anyone else in the car?"

"My baby."

The young lady was dazed and bleeding from the chin and head. I tried the sliding door. It was locked. I scrambled with the power lock; the doors clicked. It slid easily making that whooshing sound. The six month old baby girl was lying vertically between the front seats and middle seats. Her child restraint was behind the mother's driver's seat - empty. The baby was wailing. I climbed in the car to see. I didn't want to move her. I was talking to the mother calmly, reassuringly.

She panicked. She reached behind and scooped the infant up by one hand and held her tightly her blood saturating the baby's head. Another man arrived; I asked him to talk to the mother on the driver side. As he made his way around, I told her help was coming, and I was worried about her baby. We need to keep her still. I asked the mother to let me hold the baby. She acquiesced and thanked me.

The next forty minutes were a blur of sirens: the police, fire and rescue, and that little baby's cry. She had a large knot on her head. I kept her tight to my chest keeping her head still. The blood of the mother matted in the girl's hair and on my chin and cheek.

It happened yesterday. I have very deep emotions about the scene. It was violent. My wife said she was surprised and proud of my actions. I hope it is the humanity in all of us that moves us to act but, I did pause. This bothers me too.

My wife enters surgery on Wednesday. A Greek doctor is going to enter the front of her neck to get to the back of it. “I do 200 of these a year.” He has confidence. I pause and consider this. We have fears, and we pause to consider this. He states this is the inevitable. We acquiesce and thank him.

In the wake of this tide, I will continue to pause to take stake and stock in the underwhelming importance of: a seatbelt, the five point harness for children, defensive driving, a baby’s cry, a grasp on the leg, our humanity, and my wife, my love, my partner who without I am less. So, as you consider the growing tasks on your to do list, keep the underwhelming things in your life important.