Sacrifice - P52 Week 15

This is the story of the sacrifice of a car. A cute little white Subaru Forester, guided by the loving, protective hand of God, gave up its life to save the life of my beautiful 18 year old daughter.

It all happened in the blink of an eye. A busy interstate highway, a clear but cold day in January, and a patch of black ice. Suddenly she is spinning out into the lanes of traffic coming behind her, and the impact of her car and a large Dodge Ram truck.

Fortunately, or unfortunately I was in the car ahead of her and saw the whole thing happen in my rearview mirror (see previous post).  Fortunately, she popped out of her car as I got close to her, saying in a loud shaky voice "I'm fine Mom". Fine except for the blood gushing down the side of her head and face. The EMT assessed that it was only a 1" gash, but for safety sake she was strapped down on a back board and loaded into an ambulance to be taken to the local hospital.

Meanwhile, knowing that she was alert and talking I was left behind to unload all her college bound stuff out of her damaged car and into the back of mine. I remember reaching through the blown out hatch and rear window openings removing all the things precious to her, shaking glass out of everything and carefully transferring them to my car. I remember sitting in her driver's seat, where she had been driving along happily in the beautiful sunshine only an hour ago. I looked over to the passenger seat and there was her cell phone, sitting perfectly in place like it was waiting for a call from me saying "Let's stop for lunch". Her ipod was still in its little cubby, probably still playing her favorite tunes, if I could have still heard it. I remember putting the shifter in Park and turning off the key, something so final in that gesture that such a sadness overwhelmed me, I just had to stop for a few minutes and pray, and breath and cry. I removed the key from the ignition. 

An hour later, after checking out of the hospital with a good report, except for six staples in her scalp, we went to the tow yard where they had taken her car. They had taken the truck that hit her to the same tow yard. Seeing how big that truck was, stilled me and scared me. 

Mallory had the where with all to grab her camera and take these pictures. I am so glad that she did, when I look at these it is such a powerful reminder of how precious, and fleeting life can be.

Whenever I think of her little Subaru I get tears in my eyes and feel an ache in my chest. I have often wondered why the loss of a car has stirred such emotion in me. I have come to the realization that part of it is because I watched it all happen, the bigger part though is that the loss of this car signifies a loss of innocence, a loss of invincibleness, the reality of how close I came to losing a daughter.