one year later.

 what a difference a year makes. or a month. or a day. or in our case...an hour.

we are approaching the one year anniversary of the incident (that sounds polite enough right)? that's right, the incident that completely blindsided our family and by the grace of God (and matthew's superhero powers) allowed us to get up again...even if it was at a turtles pace.  you know the phrase "it seems like yesterday"?  yeah, well that isn't really the case for us.  quite the contrary really.  it seems like a lifetime since the so called incident and while we have healed physically, it has become evident that the emotional scars may be here to stay.

it was an ordinary summer day (june 15th to be exact) and i was basking in what appeared to be the perfect day.  i had accomplished grocery shopping for the week, spent the day deep cleaning my house, taken the kids to the pool and then come home to shower and wind down for the day.  matt had made good on his  promise to take tucker dirt bike riding despite the wicked heat and humidity.  riggs had decided midday to go along and being the good kid that he is, helped with the chore of loading up the trailer.   (it wasn't until several weeks after the accident that it occurred to me that riggs wasn't even supposed to have been there...go figure).   i had made a point to bathe my daughter early that evening in the hopes of her falling asleep shortly after the boys had left.  i was preparing for a kid free evening in my quite and oh so clean house. ironically, moments before receiving the phone call, i had updated my facebook status to that of having one of the best days i'd had in quite some time.  call me superstitious, but i haven't done that since.

now, i have had several "incidents" in my life and i'm always amazed that i can remember the smallest of details with each one.  for example, on the night of the incident,  i remember the dress i was wearing. i hate that dress now.  it's unfortunate really...because it was new. and cute. and expensive....and now i hate it.

i remember that because riggs had been helping load the trailer, he hadn't had a chance to eat.  he ran inside to grab some dinner  before leaving.  he ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich followed by an enormous piece of vegetable lasagna.  My biggest worry that evening was that he would get a stomach ache from the disgusting dinner he had just inhaled and be too sick to ride.  laughable when you consider what happened.

in typical sarah form, i was vacuuming my already clean kitchen floors and decided to clean out my vacuum in the process.  sadly, this is what i choose to do on a free night from the husband and kids -
  In what seemed like a millisecond the sky turned black and a typical southern storm let loose.  

i called matthew to give him the heads up that a storm was coming their way but he didn't answer.  i assumed they were either getting a few more laps in before it reached them  or that they were loading up the bikes....thinking nothing of it, i went back to my cleaning. they had been gone one hour.  yep, that's it...one hour.  

What a difference an hour makes.

i went back to cleaning when the phone rang. the caller id had shown  matt's phone and i casually answered "hey".  silence on the other end followed by a crying tucker stopped me in my tracks.  now mom's know their children's cries.  there are the cries of being hurt. of hurt feelings. of fear.  this was none of those...it was a cry  i had never heard and pray to God that i never hear again. it was pitiful.

"we had an accident. we got hit" was what i heard. 

"i'm on my way, where are you"? i ask, assuming it had been a car accident.

"we got struck by lightning", he said and frankly, i found the statement ridiculous.

"put dad on the phone tuck".  i'm shocked at how calm I am.  i may have even been a little annoyed.

"i can't.  he's working on riggs".....

ok, you know the part in the movies where the room disappears and the main character's head gets huge and they are just standing in the middle of the room spinning? ok, well that's me.  standing in my kitchen. in a pile of vacuum dirt. in the dress that i now hate.

for the next 5 minutes i listen to my middle child pray that God doesn't take his brother.  he actually begs for forgiveness for fighting with him earlier that morning.  he composes himself for a few minutes than wales through 11 year old tears "please don't take my brother. i'll do anything".  he is talking to God of course but is using me as his witness....as if i have ANY control over the situation. i don't...i am confused and helpless and all i want is to talk to my husband. but i can't...he's working on riggs...whatever that means.

 it is only later that i learn that while tucker had been on the phone with me, he was watching his dad give CPR to what he is sure is his dead brother through the truck window and being the stellar little man he is, spares me the details.

when my heart can't take anymore, i tell him that i need to call him back.   i am calm... eerily calm. i phone a girlfriend and flatly ask if she can come over.  she laughs and responds "you do realize there's like a hurricane going on, right"?  i have no idea what i said next but it was enough to get her there because she arrives moments later.  i open my screen door and thrust my little girl at her and order her to take her to the neighbors.  oblivious to what is going on, she follows my instructions in the middle of the pouring rain and leaves almost as quickly as she came.

when each of my children were born, there was that moment before i began to push that my body would go into full blown convulsions. regardless of the epidural which had taken  away any sort of pain, my body (and perhaps my mind) understood that something pretty major was about to happen and responded by shaking.  with each delivery matthew would cover me with a mountain of blankets.  while the thought was nice, it served no purpose because the convulsions were coming from the inside.

the moment my daughter was out of site, my calm demeanor subsided and convulsions followed.  i recall bracing myself on my outdoor patio furniture for fear of my legs giving out. the phone rang and it took me a moment before realizing it was in my hand.  i answer  to hear my husband sobbing on the other end.  "i did all i could", he said.  "they pulled me off of him and took him from me". he proceeded to tell me several other things but i had stopped listening after he told me he'd done all he could.   i was aware of how long it had been since receiving the first call and knew that no one, NO ONE could sustain being down as long as my child had been.  in this moment, we are are fifteen miles apart and we are both certain that our oldest child is dead. we hang up from one another  and i collapse at my kitchen table. i don't cry. i am numb.

there isn't a parent alive that hasn't had that moment where they can't find a child in the store for two minutes or watches the panicked face of an infant choking.  they will describe those two minutes as feeling as though it were ten.  well, let me tell you what 40 minutes feels like...it feels like a lifetime.  

my girlfriend arrives to find me out of my mind distraught and i bring her up to speed.  i can hardly form the words struck by lightning. it seems surreal. actually, it sounds stupid...but it is the truth and that's all i have right now.  i tell her it's not looking good.  she literally drags me to my kitchen floor and we kneel in the pile of vacuum dirt (another irrelevant detail I have yet to forget).  she pleads with God for a miracle. i remember for a second feeling guilty that i hadn't thought of it myself.  i had after all, listened to the prayers of my middle son...the least I could have done was echo his words. again, i was numb...

i would describe myself as being extremely level headed and at times almost TOO rational.  i would be lying if i said i never cracked, but the truth is... i don't crack in front of others.  we had barely said "amen" when I got to my feet and then completely lost my mind. the phone hadn't rung in several minutes and everything in my body told me that my husband was on his way home to tell me that riggs was gone.

i asked my friend to take me somewhere...anywhere.  i didn't want to be home to hear the news.
i realize now how ridiculous that was.  the news would have found me eventually, regardless of where I hid. in this moment, however, i was ready to run away.

my friend had enough sense to pretend she would take me somewhere but told me she wanted to first call matt for an update.  i begged her not to, however,  she was in her right mind and I wasn't.  she won.

she had gotten matt on the phone and i put my head on the kitchen table to brace myself for what i was about to hear. i almost pitied her for the position i had put her in. even in this horrific moment, i recall feeling  bad for her.  a moment later,  i heard the word stabilized. this brought me a small amount of comfort.  i had no idea what that meant...but it was better than the alternative.  they were transporting him to the hospital, and as far as I knew, they didn't take the deceased to the hospital. 

i think this was one of the five times in my life that i have left the house without make-up.  i left the dog out of his cage, candles burning, and every light on in my house. i grabbed my purse and mechanically climbed into the car.  my friend drove me to the hospital in what was apparently one of the worst storms we have ever had...i honestly don't remember.  if I recall, it was a rather quite ride to the hospital.  i remember getting off at our exit and turning my head towards heaven.  with the attitude of a teenager, i smugly said "I haven't asked you for anything.  If you are even remotely aware of us, prove it".

I was talking to my parents.

To be continued...