On the story around, within, and through the facts

“Please don’t move, Denise. Just try to be still. Help is on the way.”

These words came to me in what I was sure must be a dream. I knew this because the words were clear and I knew who was speaking them – a particular teacher at my school who also happened to be the father of a friend. It made absolutely no sense that he would be speaking these words to me in any context I could fathom within my 12 year-old world, so dream it was most certainly.

There was also the intense feeling permeating this dream that I must have arranged myself into a very awkward sleeping position in the real world and I very much wanted to relieve that stiffness that becomes pain when such a position is held too long in sleep. If I could only just will my body, through this dream state, to move just a bit…

“Oh Denise, please try to lay still. Just a little longer.”

As part of the slow process of unpacking the non-essential boxes from our recent renovation, I came across a scrapbook I had started as a teenager, though didn't complete because a scrapbooker’s heart I did not – and still do not – have.

As I flipped through the ol' relic the other day, I found myself taking a longer moment at this page:

A small homage to the event on a particular day in 1993 that gave my two brothers and I what I consider to be a notable shared experience.

A little hard to see in the above picture, in the centre is this:

The news clipping is blunt. Boring. And also, I continually lamented at the time, not entirely accurate – the bus wasn’t empty, you idiots! There was a driver – ugh (insert super high-impact 12-year old eye roll).

It wasn’t a big deal, this accident, in the grand scheme of things. Save for that driver bit, the write-up wasn’t wrong. It efficiently relayed the facts. (Oh, and my middle brother and I have marked what we felt particularly important on this copy of the clip: highlighting that shows as black from Jeff, the green squiggles from me.)

But, you know, it’s the story of my experience of it - the event, the immediate result and the all of the rest, that I carry with me. I smirk every single time I look at that clipping because to me it is so ridiculously boiled down. It's the bare bones that have been removed from the pot after hours on a simmer and presenting them as all that is worth taking away. What about the stock, man?!

(Sorry. Got carried away with the food-line there. Anyway.)

So, what I described above, with the man I knew but whom had no business in speaking to me in that moment as I understood it – that is one of the memories that rises to the top from that day for me.

It was not a dream, and what I’ve come to realize also is that I carry those words and the conditions of them being spoken to me and their making their way somehow through the cloud ensconcing my brain because they were a kindness, a demonstration of such touching and - quite frankly - surprising care in the bizarre circumstances in which I found myself that day.

See, that encapsulates what I hold onto from that day and its resolution in the weeks after.

When I see that scrapbook page, I am struck by the fact that I chose to create a page full of photos of my brothers, a visual of the importance of my relationships and connections with them, altered and made tighter through the experience, but anchor this sentiment by slapping the news clipping in the centre. It's at once discordant in this juxtaposition, but also maybe it was me sending out a wink to my future self, for every time I cracked the scrapbook open.

Remember this?! Just look at how the newspaper chose to tell others about it. Wasn't it inane? They just had no idea, did they?

Of course I know it is not the local newspaper's responsibility to write a feature piece on every car accident that happens, especially any accident that isn't too serious. Regardless, I see that stunted summary of the event and I have my experience of it come at me from deep in my brain and I am reminded that it really was so much more. And I am making this opportunity to write my version of a feature on it, simply because I want to.

On a foggy morning, as we were on the last stretch of our 45-minute car ride to school – just a minute or two away from the school – our car collided head-on with a full sized school bus (thankfully with no children aboard) as my brother attempted to pass a car, barreling downhill, unable to see that in the valley the bus was coming directly our way.

I sat in the middle back seat of the car where, because it was the olden days, I had only a lap seat belt on and from the impact of the crash, I slammed my head into the front seat armrest immediately ahead of me and was knocked unconscious. My two brothers in the front seats sustained a good deal of injury, but remained conscious and so my understanding of what transpired immediately after impact comes from them. I came-to somewhat a few times, but did not open my eyes until we arrived at the hospital.

Here’s how that news clipping comes to life for me. Here’s what I remember and feel when I flip to that scrapbook page.

• I remember the cold I felt while in that awkward position I talked about, from the open car door, but I remember more hearing those words and feeling comfort (whether dream-like or not) from them.

• I remember the immediate rush of anger that flowed through me when I first heard that the driver we had attempted to pass and the bus driver’s first reactions towards my brother were anger and criticism. He would have to face the question of what, exactly, he had been thinking many, many times following the accident. Shoving it in his face in the moments immediately following was not necessary, especially considering that, having looked at me immobile in the back seat, one of the questions also in his mind at the exact moment was, Is my sister alive?

• I remember the small pewter figurine of three owls in a line, a big, medium and small sized owl that my mom gave my eldest brother following the accident to represent the trust she still held for him, in his ability to look out for his brother and sister (I get teary every single time I recall this part)

• I remember apologizing profusely for vomiting all over the nurse who had, based on a warning I gave just seconds prior, hastily tried to cut through all of the straps that held me to the board on which I was brought into the hospital to get me rolled onto my side in time, for naught – apologizing because she had spoken tenderly to me and treated me with such kindness in the moments before

• I remember seeing my dad walk into the room they had put me in to wait until a room was prepared upstairs, with an Archie comic book and a stuffed dog in his arms – and I remember feeling so badly about what it must have been like for him on the drive to the hospital, how that phone call he would have received from the police must have been a gut-punch. How seeing me, with a huge gash on my forehead and barely able to move because of how sore my back was, seeing my brother – in a wheelchair to provide relief from his broken ribs, and my other brother who I hadn’t even seen yet, but whom I heard had a horribly beat-up looking face from his getting very familiar with the steering wheel (where were you airbags??) and was suffering from some internal bleeding – how terrible all of that must have looked and felt for a parent. And so grateful that he brought sweet gifts, normally what I thought would tend to be my mom’s domain but she was a couple hours away at a conference and not yet able to make it back.

• I remember feeling heavy for my poor mom - what it must have been like for her to get pulled out the conference room with the news, and then the worry-laden drive back from Toronto

• I remember being grateful that I had only to share my hospital room for the night with one other kid, a sweet, friendly, longer-term patient and feeling very sad to later learn that my eldest brother was stuck in a large ward room with numerous loud kids, and also that he had fainted in the washroom in that room and the thought of him alone, in that room, while chaos carried on beyond the door – it saddened my 12-year old self.

• When he picked us up from the hospital after we were discharged - sore, slow-moving but grateful to be going home, my dad asked if we would like to stop in at our school for a visit and I remember thinking it was a beautiful idea. As we so slowly made our way into the school, which was small with a strong community feel, I felt held, embraced (with eyes and words only, no hugs for me for quite a while after). We met my teacher in the hallway and he asked if I wanted to visit with my classmates for a while. I barely eeked out a yes - I wanted it so badly. To see my friends, to be in their presence. My teacher walked in first and said there was a visitor the class would all be happy to see. I floated into the room – okay, I hobbled at a ridiculously slow pace – but my soul floated in on their surprise and excitement and warmth. My teacher cancelled the next half-hour of the planned lesson and let me share about what I had experienced in the previous 36 hours and facilitated a little Q & A session (of course they had heard some bizarre half- and much-less-than-half-truths of what had transpired – refer back to the small school thing). I was surprised to realize how good it was for all of us – they wanted to hear, they wanted to know both the facts and what it had all felt like for me, and I found comfort in sharing it all with them. The power for both teller and listener of sharing experience at work.

Such kindness followed. My classmates hand sewed me a pencil case that they had all signed. [Edit: I just found it and would you look at this sweet thing!:]

Many phone calls. Our house was filled with the aroma of well-wishing flowers. Cards came from so many, including this from my cousin Cody (!):

I know, I know – I still have this card and it might be just a little bit weird. Especially considering that I culled my box of cards and notes in packing for the renovation. I really did.

But this card is still in that box because it reminds me of the experience in the best way. It makes me smile. It fills those gaps left by the news clipping. Because THIS is what I remember, words on the scrapbook page be damned. I remember bonding and care and kindness and empathy and love. The event was such a simple thing – car accidents happen all the time and we bear no lasting physical impact of this one. We were so very lucky and utterly unremarkable.

But when I reflect on what lies behind, around and through the description laid out in that news clipping I am struck again by how the experience of a thing can be so much more and important than the words someone else chooses to ascribe to it. That there is just so much more that informs our everyday experiences and also forms us through them.

My recent blogging streak (HA) has been about filling out parts of my story in the hopes of possibly connecting with others, to see perhaps in different ways with different messages, dimensionality, reflection, validation, or even simply the stuff of others’ lives because it can be just so damned enriching. It’s why I’m a non-fiction storytelling junkie, waiting impatiently every single time for the next Moth, Heavyweight, and Snap Judgment podcast episodes to drop. There is so much more to understand about others’ experiences of the facts and everydays of life and I can’t stop being compelled to carry on in the pursuit.