It’s always wonderful to know that somebody loves you,
any time of year, not just for Valentine’s Day.
HONEY LOVES ME!
Honey
only tells me how much he loves me twice a year. In July he gives me a birthday card and in
December he gives me a Christmas card.
These cards always drip with so much sappiness I wonder if I should have
a shot of insulin to counteract the sugar surge! Actually, I’m usually astounded how
sentimental he is in his choice of gift cards.
But through the rest of the year, I only hear how much he cares through the
testimony of others, like that time I battled with a semi on Fraser Highway.
It
was a rainy day in May and I drove my 2007 Hyundai Sonata from Langley, where
we live, to Abbotsford, where my family doctor is located. I needed my regular diabetic check-up and to
have my prescriptions renewed. My
appointment was in the morning and I had planned to visit a fabric store out
there afterward. I asked Honey if he
wanted to go along for the ride and maybe browse through the Abbotsford Value
Village store.
“No,”
he said. “I’m still clearing out the
back yard and taking another load to the dump.”
So I
went by myself. After my appointment,
and after wandering through the fabric store without buying anything, I
realized it was eleven thirty and I needed to decide about lunch. Should I eat in Abbotsford, or drive straight
home? I favoured eating out, but not by
myself, so I called my sister-in-law, Jeannette, who lives there.
“No,”
she said. “I’m babysitting grandkids
right now. Maybe next time you come
out.”
Thinking
about lunch had made me hungry. On my
lonesome, I stopped at a Subway restaurant and had a quick sandwich before
heading for home. Rain still splattered
my windshield and the roads were wet.
Traffic was light heading west on Fraser Highway, in the same direction as
I was, but heavier going in the opposite direction. Most of the highway has just one lane in each
direction.
As I
approached the red light at the intersection with 240th Street, I
slowed down. But the light turned green
so I then accelerated through the intersection and up the following incline,
past a long line of traffic going in the opposite direction. They had been stopped at the light. As I topped the hill, I was still doing less
than the posted speed limit of eighty kilometres per hour. Right at the top of that hill, there was a
lumber yard on my right. That was the
exact destination of a semi, which had been sitting in the opposing traffic and
suddenly decided to make a left turn across a solid yellow line right in front
of me.
With
my heart in my throat, I slammed on my brakes.
I could feel my car skidding on a wet surface. I fleetingly realized I had nowhere to
go. The semi was in front and to the
right of me. A line of traffic was to my
left. I knew I would hit the semi, which
was pulling a flat deck. I was terrified
I was meeting my demise, that I might be beheaded, or that I would be so
mangled my newly restored limbs would have been for nought. Looming in front of me I saw the huge tires
at the back of the tractor. My whole
body shook as metal in front of me crunched.
I felt my car being pulled along with the semi. And then everything stopped and I saw nothing
but a huge expanse of white.
At
first I thought I had died, but that white light I saw hurt like hell. My whole face stung. Then the white slowly deflated and I realized
it had been the air bag. I looked out past
the pushed up and crumpled hood of my car to see that the semi had proceeded
further into the lumber yard and it had pulled me to the side of the road in
the process. There was either steam or
smoke coming up from the motor of my car.
I tried to turn the ignition off, but the key wouldn’t turn. I didn’t know if my car would catch fire or
not. I had urgent thoughts of needing to
get names and phone numbers from witnesses.
I groped for a notebook and pen from the glove compartment. My arms moved fine. My legs were still there and I could feel
them and they weren’t broken. Why had
nobody come to see if I was all right?
Maybe they thought I was dead. I
opened my car door to go look for witnesses.
A
woman ran up to me before I could get out.
“Don’t move! Don’t move!” she
ordered. “I’m a nurse. Don’t move.
First responders are on their way.
I called 9-1-1. Can you see
okay? Did you bang your head? Do you think anything is broken?”
Very
kindly, she was trying to save me from hurting myself by keeping me still. She said she had been travelling in the
opposite direction and had seen what happened.
Just then, another woman walked up to my car and said she had been behind
me and had seen everything. I asked the
second woman if she would write down her name and number and collect any other
names of witnesses for me. She did. Several men came over to my car and I asked
one to get me the licence plate number on the back of the truck that hit
me. As he was doing that, the driver of
that truck confronted me.
“What
the fuck do you think you were doing?
Were you on your phone, or texting?
You had no business accelerating like that!” He was yelling at me like it had all been my
fault. I just stared at him. I didn’t have the energy to argue. Thankfully, just then a firetruck arrived
with sirens and lights, and the first responders had everyone else move aside
as they tended to me and turned off the motor of my car and then sprayed it
with fire retardant.
Within
another minute or two, an ambulance arrived and the firemen tending to me gave
way to the paramedics. I was walked over
to the ambulance and my vitals were checked.
Pulse, blood pressure, blood sugar, temperature. I was asked if I’d been unconscious and I
said no. I was asked to state what
happened. By then I was beginning to
feel some injuries from the air bag and seat belt; a fat lip, neck and breast
abrasions, and a very sore and swollen left hand. The paramedics told me they were very happy I
was alive and talking as they had been expecting to recover a dead body, or
bodies, when called to the collision of a car and a semi. At least I’d be able to tell Honey I’d made
somebody happy.
The
policeman entered the ambulance and asked to see my driver’s licence. I asked if he wanted my statement about what
had happened. “No need. There were plenty of witnesses and they all
said the same thing,” he told me.
I was
then transported to the Langley Memorial Hospital and left in the emergency
waiting room for my turn to see a doctor.
It was from there that I kept trying to call Honey. I thought he should know I would need a ride
home, probably at some late hour. I
called Honey on the land line. There was
no answer. I called him on his cell
phone. No answer. I called both phones again and left a
message. “I’m not seriously hurt, but
have been in a car accident and I’m at the ER in Langley. Call me on my cell
phone as this is an emergency and I will answer it.” You see, I don’t usually
answer calls on my cell phone. I just
have it for emergencies.
By
then, I was really feeling the need for support, or at least someone to share
my misery. I called my cousin, Penny,
and asked her to keep trying to call Honey at both the house, and on his cell. When she asked me where this had happened I
had trouble remembering the cross street, but a woman sitting in the chair
across from me said, “It was just west of 240th Street.
I saw it happen.” It’s a good
thing it’s such a small world.
That’s
when I thought I would buy myself a bottle of water and take some acetaminophen
for the painful throbbing in my left hand.
I looked over toward the vending machine by the door, and who do I see
entering with a worried look on his face, but Honey! He turned his head and spotted me sitting
there and broke into a very wide grin, like he was actually happy to see
me. I stood up as he approached and then
he grabbed me in a very close hug. I
almost cried as I was so relieved that he was so relieved to find me in one
piece!
“Did
Penny reach you on your cell phone?” I asked.
“Where were you that you got here so fast? I only called her two minutes ago.”
He
sat down beside me and explained. “I
don’t have my cell phone. It’s at
home. As I was coming back from the dump
there was a traffic line-up on Fraser Highway and I saw a tow truck loading
what looked like your car onto a flat deck.
I did a quick U-turn but the tow truck had just pulled away. Fortunately, there was still a cop there
directing traffic. I asked him where the
driver of that car was, how badly hurt you were. I said you were my wife. All he would say was that the driver had been
transported to Langley Memorial. I came
right here!”
“Oh,”
I said, thankful that he was beside me.
He asked about my injuries and then about how I managed to total my
car. Since he asked me those things in
the right order, I explained everything.
After about an hour of Honey playing dutiful husband, I could see him
getting restless. He looked like a
farmer who’d been working in the rain and mud.
Knowing I could be waiting for hours yet to see a doctor, I told Honey
to go home and I would use my cell phone to call him when I needed a ride. He was very reluctant but eventually agreed.
“I
guess I could run home and have a quick bath.
You sure you don’t want me to stay?”
I
assured him I wasn’t going to die that day, but did tell him I wasn’t going to
be cooking him any supper. He’d have to
fend for himself. It wasn’t until eight o’clock
that night that I was ready to go home with my newly purchased, medically
approved wrist support. In the meantime,
Honey had returned and brought me a sandwich because he knows I’m diabetic and
needed to eat something.
He
told me while he was home, he’d had a phone call from Shirley, a friend of
ours, to tell him two of our friends had died, and there was a celebration of
life for one on Sunday, if we wanted to attend.
We went on Sunday, and as I entered the Elks Club lounge sporting my fat
lip and wearing my wrist support, a number of people wanted to know how I was
and what had caused the accident, and wasn’t it wonderful that I wasn’t the
third death?
Talking
about Honey, our friend Shirley said to me, “You know that he really, really
loves you? He was so upset when I talked
to him on the phone. He had trouble
explaining what happened and he wasn’t thinking straight, he was just so
worried about you. He said he had to go,
that he needed to get back to the hospital and see if you were okay. He really, really cares, you know?”
So
there you have it, testimony from someone else that Honey loves me, even if it
isn’t my birthday or Christmas! How much
luckier could I be in this small world of mine?
____________________________
By Lisa A. Hatton
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