The GM
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2004
- Messages
- 1,175
I started talking about this topic in R&P a year ago, well here I am again.
Last Halloween I didn’t spend time handing out candy or indulging in cheesy horror films. I had a real reason to be terrified. I’d reference the original thread, but a search shows me it’s long gone. An article from the late evening edition of the Lubbock Avalanche Journal started off, “James Clark, a former Lubbock television news reporter and owner of the Lubbock Ledger, a print and online business journal, suffered life-threatening injuries in a one-vehicle crash….” In short, he had a really bad f^cking day.
James would be my brother, and that day would lead our family on an odyssey of sorts in which each of us would take away something distinctly different from the experience. Speaking for myself, I know that the last year has aged me, in ways beyond counting.
Here we are, 365 days later. I called my brother to wish him Happy Anniversary. Thanks to the awesome staff of University Hospital, Lubbock TX, he got an extended warranty on life. I saw a lot of people in my months down in the Lone Star state that did not.
I still have nightmares.
Nevertheless, all of our ‘firsts’ are over. Now we deal w/ life as it comes, which is sometimes frustrating, sometimes victorious, and *always* worth living.
Which brings me to the point that I brought up a year ago in this very cyberspace. Was what happened a miracle? By admission of everyone who partook in his care, from the ambulance driver to the surgeons, hemo-dialysis team, respiratory team, trauma team, and every other team, he should not have survived. But he did. Was it will to live? Did our constant family presence add ‘good vibes’ that somehow made a difference in those crucial days and weeks that followed? Did God hear a plea and decide to act upon it?
Back then, I said I didn’t know. I tried to hash it out here on the JREF. I bounced ideas off of people, thinking that some gem of wisdom would light the way for me, that I could understand why the world works as it does and why a guy who should have been a corpse is currently restarting his business, has written a book, invented a walking device so that as a paraplegic he can move unaided on his own two feet instead of relying on a chair, and married all in 12 short months that he, by all rights, should have never had.
Guys, I’m still baffled. I don’t know. This not knowing used to drive me nuts. How could I *not* know. Wasn’t I there? Didn’t I see the whole ordeal and faithfully document all of it here and in my own private journals? Didn’t I feel *something* that would make me lean one direction or the other? I was surrounded by people of faith, was there something there that I missed?
I have come to realize that I may never know.
I may never know what happened that day when he poured a cup of coffee, picked up his keys and went out to the car. Got in it. Drove four blocks and crossed over 5 lanes of traffic in broad day light, taking out 4 parked vehicles on the side of the road. A (shoddy) police investigation and 2 private investigations later and we still don’t know. Jim doesn’t remember, and the witnesses can’t explain why what happened did. The only thing we know for sure is that the seat belt failed on impact (the 66th recorded time that had happened in that model of Cavalier) and he ejected.
And I still don’t know the answers to the bigger questions I posed above.
I’m okay with it now.
I’d rather say I don’t know than bow knee to any philosophy, religion, or way of thinking that requires me to ‘just believe’. F^ck that! I want evidence, damn it! I want facts that can not be denied. At the very least, I want a gut instinct that points me in a direction that leads me to a truth which is verifiable.
Why doesn’t everyone want that?
I don’t know.
Last Halloween I didn’t spend time handing out candy or indulging in cheesy horror films. I had a real reason to be terrified. I’d reference the original thread, but a search shows me it’s long gone. An article from the late evening edition of the Lubbock Avalanche Journal started off, “James Clark, a former Lubbock television news reporter and owner of the Lubbock Ledger, a print and online business journal, suffered life-threatening injuries in a one-vehicle crash….” In short, he had a really bad f^cking day.
James would be my brother, and that day would lead our family on an odyssey of sorts in which each of us would take away something distinctly different from the experience. Speaking for myself, I know that the last year has aged me, in ways beyond counting.
Here we are, 365 days later. I called my brother to wish him Happy Anniversary. Thanks to the awesome staff of University Hospital, Lubbock TX, he got an extended warranty on life. I saw a lot of people in my months down in the Lone Star state that did not.
I still have nightmares.
Nevertheless, all of our ‘firsts’ are over. Now we deal w/ life as it comes, which is sometimes frustrating, sometimes victorious, and *always* worth living.
Which brings me to the point that I brought up a year ago in this very cyberspace. Was what happened a miracle? By admission of everyone who partook in his care, from the ambulance driver to the surgeons, hemo-dialysis team, respiratory team, trauma team, and every other team, he should not have survived. But he did. Was it will to live? Did our constant family presence add ‘good vibes’ that somehow made a difference in those crucial days and weeks that followed? Did God hear a plea and decide to act upon it?
Back then, I said I didn’t know. I tried to hash it out here on the JREF. I bounced ideas off of people, thinking that some gem of wisdom would light the way for me, that I could understand why the world works as it does and why a guy who should have been a corpse is currently restarting his business, has written a book, invented a walking device so that as a paraplegic he can move unaided on his own two feet instead of relying on a chair, and married all in 12 short months that he, by all rights, should have never had.
Guys, I’m still baffled. I don’t know. This not knowing used to drive me nuts. How could I *not* know. Wasn’t I there? Didn’t I see the whole ordeal and faithfully document all of it here and in my own private journals? Didn’t I feel *something* that would make me lean one direction or the other? I was surrounded by people of faith, was there something there that I missed?
I have come to realize that I may never know.
I may never know what happened that day when he poured a cup of coffee, picked up his keys and went out to the car. Got in it. Drove four blocks and crossed over 5 lanes of traffic in broad day light, taking out 4 parked vehicles on the side of the road. A (shoddy) police investigation and 2 private investigations later and we still don’t know. Jim doesn’t remember, and the witnesses can’t explain why what happened did. The only thing we know for sure is that the seat belt failed on impact (the 66th recorded time that had happened in that model of Cavalier) and he ejected.
And I still don’t know the answers to the bigger questions I posed above.
I’m okay with it now.
I’d rather say I don’t know than bow knee to any philosophy, religion, or way of thinking that requires me to ‘just believe’. F^ck that! I want evidence, damn it! I want facts that can not be denied. At the very least, I want a gut instinct that points me in a direction that leads me to a truth which is verifiable.
Why doesn’t everyone want that?
I don’t know.