A few months ago, I realized that I speak of grief recovery and how spending time outside in nature had softened the ragged edges of grief for me, but I didn’t talk much about what happened to Lucy. Most of those who have received Lucy’s Heart Rocks know the terrible story; and I don’t really enjoy reliving it, but I know it’s necessary for those new to my website to have those questions answered.
My marriage to Lucy’s dad had come to an end after 15 years. We were co-parenting well together; and our kids seemed to be adjusting to two homes and parents who did not live together any longer. At the time of Lucy’s accident, I had remarried and lived with my husband on a ranch outside of San Angelo, Texas. It was a normal Friday morning; I dropped Lucy off at school and went to work.
Unthethered
It was their dad’s weekend to have the kids, so I felt ‘free’ in some sense of the word. It’s impossible to grasp how much I have regretted that welcomed untethered feeling.
Saturday morning at the ranch was a workday for my husband and myself. We had horses to saddle, and cattle to work.
In my ex-husband’s world he had a pasture to mow and 3 kids who were arguing over whose turn it was to ride with dad on the big blue Ford tractor. Seth was sent back to the house and Lucy climbed on the tractor with her dad.
Is it weird to not know exactly what happened?
Really, there is nothing quite like sitting in your favorite saddle on a horse you dearly love on an early October morning. The week before had been spent celebrating Lucy’s 7th birthday with a sleepover at the ranch with her best girlfriends. I’m sure there was still birthday cake in the refrigerator.
The siren
Living 8 miles from the highway brings a lot of quiet. So much quiet that sound travels a long way and you notice anything that is not in the normal range of what your mind has adapted to. “The siren sounds really close”. I remember saying. It seemed to keep coming and coming. The road to our house on the ranch had 1 fork in it. While we worked, neither of us said much to each other, we were both hoping we would notice some distance between us and the siren, maybe that they would take that fork in the road away from us. There was tension between us and the cattle, and I felt that my horse could sense my tension because his mane twitched as if there were flies around. When we could see the Sherriff’s car, he turned the siren off.
In a small town, it’s nice to get to know everyone so of course we called the Sherriff by name as he stepped out of his car. I trotted my horse right up to him and watched him take off his hat and look at me with an ache in his eyes. He looked at my husband and said, “I need to take Susan to the hospital, Lucy has been involved in an accident.”
Denial 101
I was sure he had the wrong Susan Page. I mean how wild it is that there was another Susan Page in the same town, but there was. Stepping off my horse; I remember feeling as if my feet didn’t really touch the ground. I sort of floated. Things began to go both in fast motion and in slow motion. Wavering between the two. This feeling didn’t change for many years. Years later I learned that this was a trauma response. I handed my horse off and floated into the Sherriff’s car. We made small talk. Being southern, of course I first apologized and then thanked him for coming to get me. I remember asking him what was wrong; and him stumbling around the words that he didn’t really know. My mind told me it was a broken arm, something trivial and normal for a kid, but the speed in which he drove told me otherwise.
Why don’t they pull over when they hear the siren?
Something odd has stuck with me for 23 years and that is why people don’t pull over when they hear a siren behind them? Not everyone does or did that day which made the 38 minutes it took to get to the hospital enough to make my hands begin to shake.
My ex-husband, my pastor and my friend, the pediatrician
Another moment in time where I felt I was on a spacewalk happened when I realized that my ex-husband, my pastor and my very good friend, who happened to be the pediatrician on call that weekend, were waiting for me on the sidewalk outside the hospital. As I got out of the Sherriff’s car, my body walked in slow motion, as if my space suite was heavy, toward my friend who walked up to me, grabbed my arms, looked at me square in the eyes and said, ‘you have to be really, really strong’. And so, I was. For years, I was really, really strong.
Just enough to be dangerous
My dream was to be a flight nurse. I had taken 2 years of nursing school, but marriage, babies and contentment curtailed that dream. Those 2 years of nursing school and 1 year of working in the ER as an ER Tech had given me enough knowledge to be dangerous. I saw some things in the ER. Attempted suicides, motorcycle wrecks, car wrecks, cut fingers, all
the normal ER tragedies so the environment was not too far from the norm I had been used to at one time. It’s different though when you walk into an ER and you’re the mom of a little 7-year-old girl lying on an ER bed. I felt eyes on me; I also saw eyes diverting my eyes. I was still on my moon walk at this time, so things moved slowly. I noticed things that I think in a normal day we don’t notice. It was here that I learned parts of what happened to Lucy. To this day I still don’t know it all. She was riding on her dad’s lap and had attempted to jump off the tractor and move a limb that the tractor couldn’t mow over. Her little foot caught, and she began to fall. Her dad tried to catch her, but her weight pulled his foot off the already loose clutch and the tractor jumped forward running over her.
ground control to major tom
The words from her neurosurgeon reminded me of the song by David Bowie, ‘Major Tom’. As if they should offer me some peace. He explained that she was here one moment and in the kingdom of heaven the next. Although, she was still alive. It was his way of softening the blow possibly of suffering. When I touched her bandaged head, I noticed blood coming from her ears and her nose. An image I rarely allow my mind to go back to. She began to have a seizure, and I was escorted out of the room.
Bubble wrap
“You must be very, very strong” and so I was as God wrapped me in bubble wrap. I didn’t feel. Medical experts would call it shock. I like ‘bubble wrap’ better. That is how I felt. Functioning. Strong. As if I could lift a car off my child. I felt as if I was elevating from the room but could see it all happening in slow motion.
“Ground Control to Major Tom. Ground Control to Major Tom. Take your protein pills and put your helmet on. (Ten) Ground Control (Nine) to Major Tom (Eight, seven) (Six) Commencing (Five) countdown, engines on (Four, three two). Checking ignition (One) and my God’s love (Lift off) be with you.
This is Ground Control to Major Tom. You’ve really made the grade. And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear. Not it’s time to leave the capsule if you dare.
This is Major Tom to Ground Control. I’m stepping through the door. And I’m floating in a most peculiar way.
And the stars look very different today.
YES, THEY DO, THEY STILL DO.
