Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Before and After (05/14/09)
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TITLE: Doctors Said I'm Lucky | Previous Challenge Entry
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05/21/09 -
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He wore a fancy grey suit, with his hair perfectly parted down the side. The mousse he used left a slight glimmer on it as it fell lightly on his forehead. No wrinkles of any kind. His perfectly stubbled half-beard. He says, “Do you remember your life from before the accident?”
A tear runs down my face, not because I’m sad, but because that’s what happens when your eyelids didn’t agree with the shards of glass. Doctors said I’m lucky to have eyes. “Before the accident, everything was great. I had a wife, kids, a nice car. I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures.”
He smirks. “Yes, I have. Mercedes?”
“Is that what it was?” The model of the car doesn’t matter. None of the crash test ratings in the world can prepare a car for a person running out for a carton of milk so his daughter can sleep and being slammed into head first by a drunk driver. The grocery store was right on the corner. Doctors said I was lucky to be alive.
His blue eyes sparkle in the light. White and clean, his eyebrows well-groomed. He blinks. “What about your faith?”
“Faith? Funny word to hear after what I’ve been through. My wife, she believed I was saved by God. Me, I think this is torment.” The muscles in my face flex in a sad mockery of what they’ve taught me to be a smile. I remember what smiling was. This isn’t.
“Torment? You still have your life.” He brushes some of his brown hair out of his face.
I asked the nurses to take the mirrors down in my room. They wanted me to get acclimated to my new self. Take ownership. The problem is that I don’t want this. This is the face of a comic book villain. The one where the sight of their face drives them crazy. It happens. The doctors said I was lucky I could breathe. “My life? No, I am living, but I do not have my life.”
His eyebrow cocks up. “I don’t think I understand.”
He wouldn’t. “My life? My life died when I survived that crash. God took my life from me. After that, I’ll never live a normal life. Before the crash, I had everything. A wife, and kids. A house. A life. Now? Now I have a hospital bed and a treatment schedule so that my scars don’t get infected. If you want to call that a life, go ahead. My wife did. But I knew better. My kids were scared of me, and soon, she stopped bringing them with her.” The muscles that make up what used to be my upper lip twitches into what used to look like a snarl. I don’t know what it looks like now. “So, yes, I consider this torment not life.”
He looks down at his notepad, his hair falling into his face. He moves it out of his face and looks me in the eyes. He doesn’t blink. “God still loves you.”
I almost laugh. “That’s so nice of him.” Another tear leaks out of my eye socket. Uncontrollable. That’s what happens when your eyelid is torn as it catches jagged glass at sixty-five miles per hours. Doctors said I’m lucky I can see.
He purses his lips and sets his pen down. “I’m serious. God really does love you. That’s actually why I’m here. I was thinking about you the other day. Your wife called, said you told her not to come back. You need to know that God still loves you.”
“I don’t want to talk about this.” Tears stream down my face. The doctors say I’m lucky.
He pulls out a small book and sets it on the table next to me. It’s black and leather. I know what it is. I look away.
He pats me on the shoulder. “Well, you know my phone number.” He walks out.
Doctors say I’m lucky. My wife says I’m lucky. My brother says God loves me.
“How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not save?” Habakkuk 1:2
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