Audio Player, Story 8: Gone • 35 mins.

I yanked out swirled clusters of toilet paper from my overstuffed bra in the middle of the dance floor during the senior prom with Larry Denn and he doubled over laughing. I just wanna make love to you by Foghat was blaring.

He lifted his head above the toilet seat as I opened the stall door to go pee. “I found the python, Dr. Haast,” I yelled down the hall before starting my first tour of the day at the Miami Serpentarium. 

On our way home from spring break in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Shelly pulled out her wallet during a kangaroo court hearing for speeding. As she opened her checkbook, a big fat joint rolled off the edge of her wallet and onto the desk right in front of the judge. “How much is the ticket?” she asked sweetly, coyly, then she picked up the joint, put it back into her purse, and muttered, “Darn tampons, so sorry.”

Two babies, two white cribs, in a mint-green room with yellow and white checkered curtains, sun shining through, trumpeting a new day for my two beautiful babies. Alan standing up, grabbing and shaking the crib bars like a famished prisoner; Laura rolling over and cooing, and everyone is hungry and wet.

Brian and I went to the drive-in to see Jaws, three times. We heard it, but never saw it.

I walked behind him, gazing at his long, tan, beautiful legs when he suddenly turned, knelt on one knee in the warm sand of Buckroe Beach, and said, “Cindi Bush, will you please marry me?” 

There were so many more.

A litany of flashbacks and flicks rampaged through my mind miliseconds after I saw his head resting on top of his forearm, draped on top of the steering wheel. Oh yes, your life does flash before you at the speed of light when you are certain you will soon be dead. And if you really think you’re checking out for good, you pee yourself.

~~~~~

Thick arms reached in through my side window, scooping me under my legs and around the back of my neck, tucking me in, nestling me close and safe.  I was taken away from the wreckage.

“How did you do that?” I conjured, glancing around the cab of the truck.  The side windows were mostly gone, trimmed with a thin rim of jagged glass shards. Small balls of scraggy glass were sprinkled on my lap and in Laura’s empty car seat.  The windshield was shattered but in tact, like translucent hard crack candy.  There was a small hole in the windshield where the rearview mirror was attached earlier, and the steering wheel was embedded in the soft covering of the dashboard, just above the speedometer. The bare steering column looked like it was sticking its tongue out at me.

I deduced it was not possible to lift me out through my side window. 

“So how did you-?“

We took flight at the same trajectory as an airplane taking off, at about a 15 degree angle, but that didn’t last long. Suddenly, there was a warp-speed, super-boosted acceleration and a lift at a 50 degree angle, and then, there was no evidence of speed, no physical attestation that we were moving at all. I was wafting, really, going away from the truck, away from Laura, and away from Woodbine Road in Unionville, Maryland.

I was very aware of my surroundings, of what was happening to me. At first, a light grayish mist enfolded me, but it was not wet and there was no temperature. Then, the heavy weight of my dangling legs fell off, and when that happened, I felt a release from an unhappy marriage. It was exhilarating.  My legless lower body became rounded, like the bottom of an egg.  My carrier seemed to vanish too, as if the load was too great to bear. 

Then I felt my arms release, right out of my sockets! and so did the stress of all the money problems that new parents have, and I was lighter still. My see-through body continued to morph into the shape of an egg, with ruffly oscillating edges. The light gray mist began to dissipate and gave way to bright streams of whiteness, but not like a squinty, looking-at-the-sun bright, more like a Chlorox-white sheet, wavering in a zephyr breeze. Uplifting, energizing, so hopeful and exciting.

Suddenly, all traces of meaty me was gone but I was still there! I could see, I could feel, I could hear, but there was nothing to hear, only to know. 

I never died. I never lost consciousness. I just leap-frogged from one pond to another.  

And with every passing nanosecond, I felt higher, as in high on the sedative-cocktail-just-before-surgery higher, climactic-sex higher, schools-out-for-the-summer higher, and- 

Right here, right now, is when I realize my incapacity to describe what this felt like. My frustration keeps me stalling to complete this story because either I'm not a good enough writer to reveal what I experienced, or there are simply no words or phrases or analogies commensurate to convey what happened to me after I was “air lifted” out of the truck.

I was breathlessly high, euphoric, gleeful; I remember laughing when I thought about how scared people are of dying. 

“What a bunch of horseshit that is!” I giggled.  Then I cowered, thinking that at any second, the wrath of God’s giant wooden spoon would whack me right to hell for swearing. But that’s not how Spirit operates… so far 

This revelation and many more epiphanies all happened in a blink, and they never left me. I learned this: The Source, the Creator, this Spirit is nothing but love; there is no vengeful, angry, jealous God, because Spirit is 100% love, so there’s no room for anything else. The name “God”; it’s so inadequate, so insulting, so haughty to even think we have the capacity to name this Spirit, to box it, book it, own it. Ridiculous.

Great balls of bliss ignited one joy explosion after another, permeating me, blowing me apart, until there was nothing left of me, the me from earth, the me in the crash, the me with two babies, dogs, and ducks, and the me with a very unhappy husband. The fleshy, physical me was gone. But the conscious me was still very much persisting, pulsating and operating as an orgasmic entity of love. 

I got it, I got all the love I ever desired, ever wanted, just like Wally and the Beav got from June and Ward Cleaver; unconditional, sweet, and tender.  I was satiated in ecstasy, seeped and soaked and steeped in love until suddenly, I wasn’t just loved anymore. I went from being loved, to BEING love.  I became love. I WAS LOVE!!  Like Toys R Us? I R LOVE! I am a hunka-hunka burnin’ LOVE!

I didn’t go through a tunnel toward the light. When my carrier lifted me out of the truck, there was light that became lighter. I didn’t see any dead relatives or any dead people. I didn’t see pearly gates or St. Pete, Jesus, or Elvis. I didn’t see anybody. I didn’t hear anybody, but I knew I was traveling in another dimension and I never, ever, wanted to stop.  I never wanted to stop feeling what I was feeling. 

However, I was not in charge. My motion began to slow, and although my body was gone, I could feel myself pushing back against a force, with what would be my shoulders, and I put my head down and began to shove and butt like a ram against this relentless power that insisted I go no further, forcing me to stop. I screamed “No. No! NO NO NO!! NOOOOOOO! PLEASE, LET ME GO!!” 

I could hear my protestations echo all around me, louder and louder, but the force was unyielding.

I pleaded: “The children will be fine, I had fun here, a good life, a good time, but this is so glorious, I don’t need to go back, please let me stay oh please oh PLEA-“

~~~~~~~

“Oh my God!”

“She’s alive!” 

“Look! Look!”

“Oh God!”

I dragged my head upright from the back of the bench seat. 

Blood flooded and covered my left eye.  I looked to the right; Laura was not in her car seat. She was on the floor, her bright yellow snowsuit pulsating from her attempted gasps for breath, she was trying to cry but she had no air.  I bent from the waist to grab her off the floor, but my lower body did not move, did not feel, my legs stayed perfectly still, like a concrete anchor.   “I’m paralyzed,” I thought.

I slowly turned my head to the left. A half-dozen onlookers were just inches from my bloody head and they were mortified, squealing and gawking, turning their heads away, then back again, unable to stop their morbid curiosity. 

“This is NOT A F——ing ZOO!!” I gurgled with a whisper-shout. This was the first time in my 24-year life that I used the f-bomb out loud. 

Funny the things you remember.

They dispersed. The firetrucks came. The ambulances came.  They took me and Laura away.  

~~~~~~~

“Where’s Laura? How is Laura? Take me to her now please, I want to see Laura, is she OK? WHERE IS MY BABY?” I yelled. 

“She is here, but a helicopter is taking her to Hopkins,” a nurse told me, “Please Mrs. Lamb, you need to calm down, you are…” 

“NO!! NO! I WANT TO SEE HER NOW!” I screamed.  Another nurse gave me a shot. I calmed down. 

“Why are you taking her to Hopkins?” I cried. “What’s wrong with Laura?  Why are you taking her there?” I sobbed.

Doctors and nurses scurried around me, stitching my face, cutting off some of my clothes, swabbing my knees to prepare for more stitches and casting my broken right leg.  

“Laura is having a little problem moving,” another nurse told me.  “This is just a precaution, she is awake and we are all taking very good care of her,” she said softly.  

I snapped my head hard to my right.  “What’s that awful smell?” I asked the state trooper standing at the side of my gurney. And just as I finished my question, I heard someone on the other side of my curtain, just a few feet away, gut-retching putrid vomit.

The trooper looked down at his notepad.  I could tell that he did not want to look at me. But I looked at him.  He was handsome with dark hair and deep eyes. He was trim, reticent, and angry.  I could hear his anger in his voice as he punched out each word:

“It’s the drunk driver that hit you this morning.” 

I turned my head back and looked straight up. At once, my eyes brimmed with tears that drained down both sides of my face and pooled in the concha of my earlobes.  I began to hold my breath to stop myself from sobbing out loud, from blubbering. But then:

“NO ONE GETS THAT DRUNK IN THE MORNING!” I screamed, “NO ONE!” and I screamed again. 

“STOP it right now!” he put his hand on my forearm, “Stop Cindi, please stop,” he cried, his lips shivering. My husband was standing just to the left of my shoulder. Tears streamed down his cheeks like an overfilled creek, he looked terrorized, like he had just seen a monster. 

“And what the hell are you going to do about THAT?” he hollered, and pointed at my left foot and ankle that had swollen so big, it almost hid my shoe. No one had noticed it.  One of the doctors grabbed a large pair of scissors from a sterile tray and began cutting off my shoe.  

“No, NO! Stop that!” I demanded. “These are my new shoes! Please don’t cut them, just pull it off!” I pleaded. No one listened to me. 

“Don’t worry about your shoes,” Darlene scolded me. “Worry about your feet.” 

“When did you get here? And where is my son? And where is my husband? He was just here a minute ago,” I asked her. 

“Alan is with the Young’s, your husband is going to Hopkins to be with Laura, and I just got here,” Darlene told me.  Then she rested her warm hand on top of my forearm, and gently patted it. 

“Everything will be OK,” she said, “but you need to take a chill pill!” she grinned at me.  I was so glad Darlene was with me. Darlene's younger sister was there too.

The ER team continued to stitch and swab and x-ray parts of my body, but I never felt a thing.  

Day 2.


When I woke the next morning in a hospital bed in a hospital room, I was positive this was all a dream; the jungle of chains and slings and metal framework holding up both of my legs, IV’s in my arms, a urine bag at my side.  I blinked, and shook my head, and tried to go back to sleep so I could wake up at home, but I kept looking around the room, wondering where I was, when-

I felt the impact of the crash again and screamed “LAURAAAAH!” Nurses came quickly.  They put something in my IV.  

I had surgery on my left foot to repair several broken bones.  Agonizing pain overcame me throughout the day and the nurses did their best to provide pain medication, but it was not enough.  I cried off the rest of my Maybelline every time I asked a nurse or doctor about Laura.  

My day was filled with “Where’s Laura? I want to see Laura! When can I leave and see Laura? Is she OK? Are you lying to me? Is Laura still alive? Where is she? Someone PLEASE take me to Laura!” 

Day 3.

“What are you doing in that bed?” she said too loudly. “I thought you would be roller skating up and down the halls by now,” she guffawed and she blew into my room at the Frederick Hospital with all her regalia; her jewelry that matched  her blouse that matched her bag that matched her shoes, nails and hair done perfect, smelling like too much pricey perfume. 

“Mom,” I started crying.  “How did you get here? Where’s Dad? I want Dad to take me to Hopkins. I want to go see Laura,” I cried and cried some more.  She slammed her pocketbook and bags on the chair and wrapped her arms around my shoulders and held me. And she cried too.  Her facade cracked into a million pieces and shattered on the floor.

“Your Dad is moose hunting in the bush near the Ungava Bay in northern Quebec,” she told me.  “He’s on his way home. It will take him a few more days to get out of the bush, take a plane, then start driving home,” she said. “But he will be here. I promise.”

“Do you have a mirror, Mom? I want to see my face and the nurses keep saying they don’t have one.”

“You haven’t been to the bathroom?” she asked. 

“No, Mom, both my legs are all casted up and hanging on this jungle gym contraption and I have a pee bag. I’ve been in this bed the whole time,” I whined to her.  She rummaged through her purse and pulled out a small round mirror. “I don’t think you will like what you see,” she grimaced. 

It didn’t take me long to realize why the nurses wouldn’t give me a mirror.  Both of my eyes were deeply purple, almost black, down to my cheekbones. A third of the sclera in my left eye was solid blood red. I had stitches from just below my left eyebrow, through my eyebrow and about four inches above it.  I was cut on the left side of my nostril down through the left philtral column (the line between the upper lip and the bottom of the nose). My right jaw line was black and blue and badly bruised. My sternum was badly bruised. Both my feet were severely swollen and so were my wrists. My sternum was dark purple. I felt a whole lot worse after I saw myself.  

It was then I remembered something else: I was hit twice. His 1977 Dodge Challenger struck me head-on, then bounced off, skidding into the opposite lane then ricocheting off of the craggy rock wall which sent him t-bone smashing into my driver's side door. 

"From our estimate, the crash impact was over 125 m.p.h.," the state trooper had told me. "He was speeding at about 70 m.p.h. You were driving near the speed limit at about 55 m.p.h.  You are very lucky to be alive Mrs. Lamb."

I did not have my seatbelt on. 

“How did you get here, Mom?” My Mom never drove a vehicle or had a driver’s license her entire life.

“Jim and Sally brought me with them,” she said. Jim and Sally are my husband’s parents. They visited me briefly that day but mostly held vigil with their son and Laura at Hopkins. My Mom stayed with me for three days and slept in the chair next to my bed. I was so grateful she was there.

Day 4.

It was almost noon when three doctors, two men and a woman entered my room and stood at the end of my bed. They all wore white mid-thigh doctor overcoats. Dr. Frank Gioia, Dr. Greg Stidham, and Dr. Judy Bauscher.  My husband followed them in and stood next to them.  He was almost unrecognizable, his 6’4 frame slumped and curved downward, his eyes were just slits, swollen, red, gazing down at nothing, zombie-like.

“Hello Cindi, I am Dr. Gioia,” he began softly. “We are here from Johns Hopkins Hospital to talk to you about Laura.”

I began to shiver, tremble uncontrollably. 

“Laura is not dead,” I said calmly to Dr. Gioia. “Laura is not dead,” I repeated, again and again until Dr. Gioia stopped me.

“No Cindi, Laura is still alive,” he said pensively. 

I knew there was more coming. But as long as she was still alive, it will be OK, I thought.  Nothing could be worse than my darling five-month-old baby girl dying. Nothing, right? Whatever it was, I could handle it, I will take care of her and make sure she gets better, it doesn’t matter what it is.  I will fix it. 

“Cindi, Laura is having a hard time moving,” Dr. Bauscher said quietly.  

“Why? Did she break some bones? Like in her legs? So she can’t move them just yet?” My voice became louder, more demanding. “Did she have surgery on her legs? What bones did she break?” I asked.  

“No, she didn’t break any bones in her legs,” Dr. Stidham began. “She didn’t really break any bones anywhere, except…” he stalled.  He stopped and looked down. 

“Except where? WHERE?” 

Everyone looked down. My husband covered his face with both of his hands and wailed. 

Then so did I. “Someone please tell me, what’s wrong with Laura??!” 

Dr. Stidham finally looked up, locked his eyes in the crosshairs of mine and said hard: “Laura is paralyzed.” 

“Right, like her legs aren’t moving just yet, right? But they will recover, and she will be fine, right? And she will be a ballet dancer and she will ride horses, right? And she wil…”

“Laura is paralyzed from the neck down,” Dr. Bauscher’s voice quivered.  “Her legs do not move.  Her arms do not move. Her spinal column was crushed at the C-4 level and-”

“NOOOOOOOO NOOOOO NO! I DON’T WANT HER TO LIVE LIKE THAT!!!”

I screamed.