🚨 The Night Everything Crashed

Ironically, we had just left the ER. I was dealing with the worst period cramps of my life—pain so blinding it felt like white noise behind my eyes. They drugged me up, and we were finally headed home.

Thankfully, my mom had the girls. Since she hadn’t gotten to the store yet, she asked if we could swing by Meijer. We did. Dave was hungry, so afterward, we headed toward McDonald’s.

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🌫️ Do You Believe in Sixth Sense?

For some reason, Dave jumped on the freeway to get there. I told him I wouldn’t have done that—I hate turning left off that exit. It’s five lanes wide, people fly through, and it always makes my stomach clench. But it was too late. We were already committed.

It was around 10 p.m.
Dark.
Sleeting.
Visibility: practically none.

Neither of us saw the car coming from the left.

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💥 Impact

Next thing I know, I’m slumped sideways, staring at the radio. My ears rang with static. The airbags choked the air from my lungs. I couldn’t breathe—not from injury, but from the powder filling the car. My vision blurred. For a moment, time wasn’t real.

Then came the sharp return of sound—Dave’s voice breaking through:
“Are you okay?”

“I…I don’t know,” I whispered, voice trembling.

He bolted from the car while I tried to move. I forced the door open, desperate for air. The cold sleet cut my face as I leaned out. His phone was still in the cupholder—its crash detection had already alerted our contacts. I pressed the button that popped up: Call 9-1-1.

My voice was calm—until I touched my head.
Wet. Warm. Sticky.
Something raised.

That’s when the panic hit. I begged the operator to call my mom. I needed to know my girls were okay—even though they weren’t even with me. Fear doesn’t care about logic.

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🧊 Chaos and Kindness

Dave came back and started barking details at me to relay to the 9-1-1 operator—street names, directions, logistics—like I was a dispatcher instead of a shaking woman slumped in a wrecked car. When he finally noticed something was wrong, he looked at my head and shrugged it off.

“Just a gnarly goose egg.”

That’s when I lost it.

I was screaming that I hated him. Not politely. Not delicately. I was furious and terrified and bleeding, abandoned in the exact moment I needed him to stay. He says later that an EMT asked if he felt safe at home. Let’s be clear—I wasn’t violent. I was scared. And scared women get loud when they’re not being protected.

A man had stopped to help. Dave could have checked on the others. Dave could have delegated. Dave could have done what first responders are trained to do—prioritize the most injured.

Instead, he left me.

Everyone justifies it.
He’s a first responder.

Yeah—but that doesn’t excuse abandoning your wife when she’s the most wounded one in the wreck.

Anyway, then she showed up.
The EMT who didn’t just treat me—she anchored me. With her words. With her calm. I’ll never forget her.

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🏥 The Aftermath

They loaded me into the ambulance. Dave rode along. In the trauma room, the lights were merciless. They cut my clothes, hooked up wires, spoke over me. I remember one orderly sighing, “I can’t—I’m stuck with her.”

“Hey,” I muttered, smirking through the fog. “I’m not that bad.”
He laughed. “Didn’t mean it like that.”
“You’re tethered to me,” I said.

Humor keeps the fear at bay.

During the CT scan, they told me to go to my happy place. I pictured my girls—my sleepy little anchors—and cried.

Between the CT scan and the catheter, I called my mom.

I needed reassurance. Comfort. Something solid to hold onto while everything else felt like it was sliding out from under me.

Instead, I got attitude.

Like something completely out of my control had inconvenienced her. Like I was another problem to manage instead of her daughter calling from a trauma room, shaken and scared and trying not to fall apart.

I hung up and cried harder.

Later, they tried a PureWick catheter. It failed. I lay in a puddle of my own humiliation. Eventually, they said nothing was broken. Just bruised. Battered. Shaken.

Morphine. A discharge form. No help offered.

Dave cleaned me up. Dressed me. Took me home.

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🌙 Still Standing

Seeing the car the next day was rough. It was totaled—crumpled like a warning from the universe. I climbed inside, looking for my glasses, and found them on the floor. My eyes caught the frozen meal I’d picked up from Meijer and I muttered, “Dang it, I was excited to eat that.”

We hadn’t paid for GAP coverage—the insurance that covers the difference between what your car is worth and what you still owe—but somehow our payout barely covered the loan. Progressive replaced one of the car seats and my glasses, but not Ellie’s carrier—it hadn’t been in the car at the time.

The numbers worked out just enough to move on.
The emotions didn’t.

I still have a scar on my arm from that night—a thin, silvery reminder that it could’ve ended differently. That my girls might have lost me.

But I’m still here.
Still standing.
Still mothering.

Because I’m a mother—
even when the world crashes into me.