I'm freaking out.
My mother and five of my siblings were in a car wreck this Sunday. Everyone is okay. The worst was my sister. She's a junior in high-school. She wasn't buckled up, she was laying down in the very back seat, most likely sleeping. My brother was driving, he lost control on I-5 while going 65mph. The van rolled over a few times before eventually coming to a stop. When the van did come to a stop, my sister was halfway out of it. Her leg and head were both stuck between the van and the ground. My brother tells me that "you couldn't see her head." My mom did a roll call, and when everyone but my sister didn't respond, she sent everyone else out of the car and crawled back to make sure that my sister was okay, conscious, alive. She told me that she had a minor panic attack, but when she found that my sister was both breathing and able to communicate, she calmed down and tried to comfort my sister as much as she could.
She told me on the phone, "I tried to lift the car off of her. But I couldn't lift it. I couldn't lift it." I told her that if she needed to lift it, then she would have. The paramedics came and after a half an hour of being trapped under the van, they lifted it with inflatable bags and slid her out. Everyone was taken to the hospital. Two of my brothers were given Vicodin, the youngest one was put through a battery of tests, all of them came up negative. He's 10.
My sister spent the night in surgery. She had her head stiched up, and CAT scanned. But, her feet are where they're really worried. They're all scraped up, and they may have to use some skin grafts on her legs. My dad tells me that she'll be in the hospital for a while. He says that she's in physical therapy where they just have her take these little baby steps. He says that it's very painful and she has a really hard time doing it. She took four of them today.
I could handle this yesterday. And I could handle it for most of today. I had distractions. I had homework, papers, studying, tests, class. But now, those are fading away. I'm left without the useful distractions and these little sound bytes and images I've created keep repeating in my brain.
I know that they're okay and there's nothing I can do for them, but... I'm so far away. I've always been one of the ones who held things together. The other person who fills that role is my sister, and she's not in exactly the best place for that sort of thing right now. Neither am I, I suppose.
I have an ongoing analogy for my existence. I am a tree. I have deep roots, and although my branches are far from the roots, the branches would not exist without the roots. My roots keep me planted in one spot, and keep me from falling. The thing is... this week, my roots were disturbed, and I realized just how fragile and shallow they actually are.
What happens to a tree when it's uprooted? It dies. Without my family, my roots, I am nothing. I am staring over the precipice of nothingness, and the void isn't staring back, it's drooling. All I want to do is rush to their side, I want to be there and now. But there are things I must do here first. I have papers, and packing, and cleaning, and Christmas parties, and saying goodbye. But, none of that is important. All that's important is my family, and they are so far away.
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