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| The scene of the accident taken from my daughter's phone |
"Mom! Her hair was on fire!"
It was the voice of our youngest daughter, veiled beneath indecipherable bellows of hysteria.
That much I knew, and as I held the phone to my ear and tried to purge the haze of sleepy incomprehension in this pre-dawn hour it, was clear that this was not a nightmare and also that it was not any less horrifying.
"What? What is it? What happened? Are you alright? Please, Cauley! Calm down! I can't understand you! Take a deep breath! What in God's name has happened?"
Those questions came in rapid succession as I sat upright in bed clutching my stomach in that reflex motion common among mothers whose children are momentarily afflicted with fear, anguish or danger; as though we could somehow restore them to our womb and that safe haven through sheer bodily indication alone.
"It was awful, Mom! I'll never got those images out of my head! Never!"
As her tears slowly abated and breathing had been restored to both of us, the details emerged:
She and her friend, Austin, were on the thruway returning home from a party. There had been an accident. For reasons no one yet knew, a small Nissan conveying two college-aged women had stopped dead in the center lane of the highway only to be violently rear-ended by a lone taxi cab. While the cab was totaled the driver suffered no injuries but the Nissan had been demolished and was on fire.
My daughter and her friend were first on the scene, and without hesitation they pulled off the road and Austin ran back to the burning car with Macauley running behind him while dialing 911.
Through heavy sobs she continued:
"When I called 911 the lady kept asking me where we were, and I didn't know where we were! I just kept saying that we were on the 101 and not far from Scottsdale Road. She was really nice and told me to take a deep breath like you always do, Mom, but I was freaking out because I didn't know exactly where we were and how would they ever find us?
Oh, but Mom, the screaming! The girls were screaming. They were on fire, and we couldn't get them out! We couldn't get them out! Austin kept trying but the seat belts were jammed. The whole back of the car was in the front seat and everything was crushed!
And people kept driving by, but no one was stopping to help us! They were just slowing down to look but then they'd keep going!
Finally, a car of Hispanic men pulled over and ran to help. They were able to free the girls from the wreckage, but they were still on fire! They had to drag them across the road while they were still burning just to get them away from the car before it exploded.
The driver was the worst. All the clothes on her right side were burned off and the side of her face was all black.
But Mom, while they were dragging her across the highway, her hair was still on fire and all I could think about was how awful she would feel to wake up in the hospital with all of her pretty hair gone, and I just kept screaming to them, "Put her hair out! Put her hair out!" So they stomped on it while she was laying there until it went out.
The girl who was the passenger was laying on the ground and she just kept staring at me. I mean, she wouldn't take her eyes off me. I didn't know what to do. I'll never forget how she was looking at me!
I walked over to the cab driver and asked him if he was alright. He just kept repeating "I was the driver! I was the driver!" and when I told him that it was okay; that the girls were alive, he buried his head in my shoulder and starting sobbing. All I could do was let him cry and I kept telling him that the girls were going to be okay and that it was an accident and no one was blaming him. Oh, Mom. It was so sad! He was like forty-years old, and I didn't know what to say to him.
By the time the police and the ambulance got there, the girl that was driving was up and just sort of walking around in a daze like a zombie. She was just wandering around on the side of the highway with half her clothes burned away. It was really unnerving and both of the girls just kept kind of moaning but it was strange because they weren't crying. I don't know how to explain it.
The police kept us there for two hours asking us questions and then this social worker named Lily, talked to me for a while and said that I could call her anytime if I needed to talk about it. I have her card right here. She was really cool.
But I'm okay. My hands are a little burned and Austin's face is a little red and his hair was singed, but we said we didn't need to go to the hospital.
Well, it's almost five a.m. now, and I'm getting really sleepy. I think I'll sleep most of today; wake up, eat something then go back to sleep. I have school on Monday. Thanks Mom and Dad. I love you."
In reflecting upon that conversation during the subsequent twelve hours it took me to stop shaking, I realized that all of my concern over all the seemingly me-centric orientation of my daughter and her peers had been another one of my monumental mind wastes.
My daughter is fine. In fact, she is more than that: My daughter and her friend are heros.
When I consider that these two nineteen-year old kids had not one minute of hesitation before thoroughly investing all that they had and all that they were up to that moment in their short lives and in an unarguably life-threatening situation, I know that the best of what we tried to teach her is firmly in place.
I remember when my children were young and I would pick them up from a play date or a birthday party; I would routinely be told by the other parents how lovely they were; how polite and sociable and kind.
My response was always a very halting, somewhat flustered, "thank you;" as I was certain that they were either just being polite or had me confused for someone else's mother.
And at home later that night or the next day as I watched them forcibly uproot one another from the prime viewing spot in front of the television or kick one another underneath the table at dinner or defiantly slam shut their bedroom door after a reprimand or swear on all that is holy that they hated my guts and were leaving home as soon as they were old enough to drive (who they expected would finance the getaway-car was anyone's guess), I was stricken with the fear that they might all three be sociopaths using their learned social skills to manipulate and disarm! I certainly was not a major recipient of polite, sociable and kind and I had no reason to even believe those qualities were available to them on most days.
I'm relieved to recognize that my misgivings lean more toward paranoia than they do, reality.
My daughter is a hero. She took her unbridled moxie and put it to the sacred challenge of saving two lives, as did her brave friend.
In John 15:13 it states that "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
How much greater love must she hold within her stoic little heart to have risked her life for that of two strangers?
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