Member-only story
THE NARRATIVE ARC
Don’t Panic — the Storms Have Passed Us, Baby Girl
‘I was watching them’
When I was eight years old, my momma was in a catastrophic car accident that changed the course of our family’s lives.
Nothing would ever be quite the same again.
We moved to Kentucky, from California, just before I turned eight. Within three months, my mother was lying in the hospital, fighting death daily.
My brother and I stayed with the family of one of his friends. My sister stayed with her friend and her mother. Dad spent most of his time at the hospital with Mom when he wasn’t at work.
And Mom fought for her life.
We got to see her (us kids, that is) once a week, if we were lucky. The hospital she was in was over two hours away because the local hospital couldn’t handle her injuries, so visiting wasn’t simple.
Eventually, Mom came home. She was still in traction and had major wounds from surgeries she’d undergone that needed constant monitoring and care, but she was home.
She would lie in a hospital bed in the living room, her leg in traction, till I was almost nine.
They told her she’d never walk again. They told her she’d lose her leg.
