Fearless Knitting, Fearless Recovery, Fearless Living

I was in a horrific car accident with my 5-year old son and my beloved canine friend, a beautiful Beagle named Lucy, on the 5th of January. I was on my way home from Christmas vacation spent with family in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, in central Mexico. Ethan and I were singing, playing the alphabet game, really talking to each other and generally having a great trip home. We had played the traditional "Going Home" song (a great Beatles cover sung by Aimee Mann and a singer I was convinced was James Taylor for the longest time).

We were 6.5 hours into the trip (about halfway home) on the outskirts of Monterrey when a small truck pulled out right in front of me, traveling far too slow for highway speeds. I swerved to avoid running into him, and my car overreacted, it seemed. Suddenly, I was no longer in control. I was still thinking that I'd be able to get the car under control and safely continue along when I hit the guardrail, heading toward the median. My eyes shut then, and each bash on my head and the churning of my stomach told me the car was rolling, flipping.

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was my darling son Ethan walking toward Lucy, roughly 100 feet away (more?) and still sitting up and staring at the road. So my boy was okay... I turned my head and saw a man (two men?) trying desperately to get the driver's side door open, prying and yelling. I hear a man yell "Est`a viva!" ("She is alive!"). I turn my head more and see a woman's face. I say "Y mi hijo?" ("And my son?") and she says (in Spanish) that my daughter is just fine, but they need to get me out of the car now. It's on fire. I say that he has long hair, but that he is a boy. (Funny, what seems important at such a moment.)

I see the black smoke billowing past my face. I look down and notice the blood on my khakis. I wonder where it came from. And now I see my arm, and I think to myself, "I always thought bones were white. . ." What I see is my left hand, the hand I have always been so proud to call my dominant hand, turned at an impossibly strange angle. I see bone, dark brown and mahogany, merlot, jutting nearly three inches, maybe four, out of my wrist. I see my right hand reach over and grasp my left, holding my wrist together. There is blood, but no pain, and I'm glad to see the bright red slowly oozing, not flowing, pumping. Without thinking it, I know that I will not die before the ambulance arrives.

I cannot write much at a time, but this will now be a place to record what happened since that truck pulled out in front of me as well as what is happening on my road to recovery. It is to be a blog about how knitting helps me heal (because I already, instinctively, know that this will surely be the case).

I have a long road ahead, but my son is not only alive, but completely physically unscathed, having, within days, recovered from the scrape and bruise above his right eye, the only injury he sustained. Lucy, the angel that she is, waited to see Ethan, raised her head (to say goodbye?) and, as the adored, selfless, loyal dog she was, gave her life so that her humans could live. It might seem odd to attribute such an act to a dog, but I cannot explain it other than to say that we simply know it to be true. If given the choice, she gladly would have taken the place of any of us if we were to die, and we believe that she did so. We miss her terribly.

Me? I'm alive. God is not done with me yet, so I must focus on recovery. I'm alive, so every moment in my life is a blessing, a miracle. Every single moment, every breath, every peal of my son's laughter, every stitch I can manage, every disappointment, even. . . it's all icing.