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The house sat high in the mountains, where snow-covered, jagged peaks revealed breathtaking backdrops, traces of sunlight peering above their highest point. From the window I watched the snow beginning to fall on the driveway, oversized, white flakes purposefully covering every inch of the car’s unprotected black hood. Immune to the four- hour drive back to Boston, I lingered idly in the kitchen, my mind shifting gears between the threatening weather brewing outside and the unruffled, tranquil state of the sleeping newborn in my arms. This was the baby she had waited for, I thought, after years of infertility, my childhood friend Sandy finally had her child, a gift and a gentle reminder of unexpected miracles. By the time I said my final goodbyes and made my way outside, the blackness of the car had been transformed to white. The temperature gage inside the car rose ever so slowly to ten degrees as I made my way down into the valley. Although it was midday the sun had long taken a reprieve behind the mountains, making way for the more dominant, grayish clouds. Moments later the valley was winter wonderland, snow dancing across the road blanketing the black pavement before my eyes as I accelerated onto Highway 89 just south of Stowe, Vermont. A care package of fresh salsas and chocolate sauces from Sandy occupied the passenger seat next to me, along with the untouched, half assembled Christmas cards I had meant to work on while the baby and Sandy napped. I thought about the number of journeys those unfinished cards had made in the last few weeks, the miles traveled only to remain on the passenger seat left for the final days before Christmas when the mere sight of them evoked not holiday spirit but anxiety. This year the pictures were taken early and both of my daughters now five and seven cooperated, pleased to have their part in jumpstarting the holiday season. This was to be the year when they were assembled, after Thanksgiving and checked off the list by December 1st. Weeks later, those remaining steps of gluing the pictures onto the card, addressing and mailing them fell down on the list of priorities. The skipping of my homemade CD brought me out of my holiday angst and back to the road ahead where whiteness prevailed. The tug of war between a subtle leaning in toward the fast-forwarding button and the assertive restraint from the seat belt strap felt reassuring. A tingling sensation in my left hand acted as an alarm calling to my attention the whiteness of my knuckles. I loosened my grip, an ungluing of sorts and felt the sweat in my palm, sticky on the leather steering wheel. A deep breath and flexing of the wrists restored the color to my hand and allowed my shoulders to recover from the stiff, erect position they too had assumed. All of my body parts seemed to be speaking at once, calling for a relaxation, preventing rigidity and tension to prevail. My eyes were fixated on the intervals of dusty white highway and the tiny specks of black that were now becoming an anomaly. Although my body had long sensed the changing road conditions, my mind was slow to follow. I turned up the volume on track 8, a version of Pearl Jam’s “Last Kiss” I recently downloaded and pondered the words, “the sound of the crash that night…Oh where oh where did my baby go…” I don’t recall the decision to hit the brake, but the whiteout conditions suddenly overtook me calling into play all reflexes. The sensation of spinning out of control is what remains. The Toyota 4- runner I was driving had succumbed to the black ice underneath its tires and after what seemed like minutes turning to hours of spinning, I was headed full speed off of Highway 89, death imminent. My fears of death overtook me momentarily, and the thoughts of children without a mother ensued. The silence and slithering sensations were victorious in the end, winning out to the competing thoughts of death. Although few, my last memories are vivid, the peaceful feeling of being transported elsewhere. I was immune to the rolling over of the car and the feeling of my head smashing into the roof, the crashing of the windows and the upside down position the car now rested in a gulley out of sight. The temperature gage was dropping and I remained asleep, on the side of the road, peacefully dreaming of my children. He appeared to me in a dream, the angel who saw the crash. He was an off duty EMT who happened to be driving on the opposite side of the highway. He saw the accident from the onset, reporting on the number of times the car rolled before disappearing from the road. By the time he exited the highway eight miles ahead and turned around, my body was in a snow-bank, half frozen and unconscious. I heard him before I saw him, his voice detailing my estimated weight and height to someone on the phone. I could hear faint music in the background, the car stereo skipping over the words, “oh where oh where did my baby go…” His face was tender and white like the snow around him. He seemed to have landed here in my half conscience state, continuing to appear and disappear. He was trying to talk to me but I was so tired. I wanted to talk to him, to tell him about my children and what they looked like but I was too tired. In and out of sleep while we waited for an ambulance, I managed to form the words I longed to share, telling him over and over about my children needing a mother. I needed to get to them. He unclenched my frozen, bleeding hand and removed from it a picture of my girls. Blinding lights shining down on me, rudely awakening me from the far away place I had been transported. I opened and closed my eyes fighting to get back to that quiet place, away from here, this place of penetrating, sterile walls and unrelenting beeping sounds. My body remained frozen against the cold metal table I was strapped to, seemingly belonging to someone else. Tears formed in my eyes as I silently tried to put the pieces together, my head pounding from the effort. I reached up trying to find the pain, feeling the tears mixing with the blood still oozing from the bandages. I asked for my husband and then for the man who brought me here and no one answered. I wanted to thank him, the angel. The room was silent. There were seven more accidents after mine, although none as serious. They closed that section of Highway 89 until the black ice was no longer a threat. The talk in the hospital was that it had been a miracle I survived. The head trauma and multiple concussions were the worst part, the aftermath of which remains four years later. The physical evidence lay in the roadside where the salsa and chocolate sauces Sandy had taken painstaking steps to prepare were splattered across the highway, along with their shattered containers, my purse and the unfinished holiday cards and pictures. The angel was never found. But I know he existed. He saved my life and then went on to do other work that angels do. He knew my children needed their mother and he knew he could bring me back to them. I believe in angels and in miracles. Both were a part of me that day on the side of the road within the wreckage. Both are with me now, gently reminding me how closely I teetered along the fine line, the thin thread that distinguishes life from death, the thread that keeps us from faltering. |
