Let's redefine what it means to heal

Accidents littered our roads every day. Sometimes I wondered when it would be my turn to lie inert on the side of the road, haloed in shattered glass, my crumpled car a warning to others. Your grandmother and I were young and very much in love. We didn’t pay enough attention to the road. Her hand was always on mine, or resting on my leg, and we’d talk and laugh and sing together, far from worry. One day, driving back from the beach together, we passed an accident scene. The road was clogged up, all but one lane closed. Ambulances and police vehicles sat silently observing the scene, their lights flashing. We passed the ruined vehicles and saw a child not more than ten years old lying dead on the road. His body was crushed, his blood thick on the road. He was covered with a blanket as we drove on. There was a profound, devastated silence after that. When we got home, we promised each other never to look at accidents again. When we saw the siren lights spinning blue and red we would not heed their call. We would stare ahead with steely eyes.

It was a few days later. I was driving home after a long day, your mother in the baby seat. The traffic was slow and before long those familiar lights came into view. I remembered my promise and kept my eyes far from the carnage. I drove on and arrived home to an empty house. There was no note on the fridge. I tried your grandmother’s cell phone but it was dead. You mother was screaming in my arms, and there was nothing I could do to calm her. I never heard your grandmother’s voice again. It was she who’d had an accident. A truck driver had changed lanes without seeing her little car. She’d spun, and the car behind her hit her on the driver’s side. The medics say that they could not get her out of the car for twenty minutes. All the while she was calling my name. I wonder if she saw me as I drove past, right before she went away. There isn’t a moment that goes by that I don’t think about her, that I don’t rush to the side of her car, take her hands and whisper in her ear for her to stay.