by Margaret McCarthy
It all comes back in fragments; what was once so clear isn’t anymore. I can smell the rain; I can hear the tires against the pavement. I can still see broken bottles and pools of blood that melded with the small puddles of rain in the street. When I think long and hard enough, I can remember the feeling of not being able to breathe with hands that shook even while I made fists until my knuckles turned white.
I woke up every two hours in my sleep for months. My heart and head pounding in synchronization, my chest filling with heaves that I swore could have broken through my skin. In the darkness of my childhood bedroom, I recognized the shadows from my window as the moonlight fell through. I wasn’t where my brain had made me think I was, after all. It was comforting to know I was in my home, but agony knowing I would never be where I wanted to be ever again.
She was dirty and homeless. She carried a backpack that was full of empty liquor bottles, an office telephone, and plastic bags. As she laid broken in the street among her possessions, I made my way to her. I don’t remember walking or running, only seeing her body pressed between a tire and the road once more. With shaking limbs, a heavy heart, and the soundtrack of her bones being crushed by a car in my head, I tried to remember a procedure I had never been taught. What had I learned about watching somebody be crushed by a 3,000 lb machine? I tried to remember things about CPR, scamming through memories of my health class, hearing the voice of my mother talk about the trauma victims that she had seen as a nurse. My head was spinning, my voice was breaking on the phone with an operator that I don’t even remember calling. There were panicked words among the pouring rain and moving my car in front of her so she couldn’t be hit again. Her abdomen rapidly moved in and out, her eyelids fluttering. I was afraid to touch her, afraid to look at her, and I had no idea why. So, I knelt by her, and all I could manage was, “Are you okay?”
It was then that everything stopped: no more fluttering, no more shaking. It was then me, her dead body and the rain. So, I stood up, and I stared at her. I had nothing else to do. I looked around. There were so many cars full of so many people standing across the street, staring at me. Had they not seen it? Was I making it up? I looked at my hands, for whatever reason: they were still shaking. I turned back to look at my car: it was still there, still old. She was still there and I was still here. Soon there were red and blue lights and sirens. I remember my parents, police officers, paramedics. I remember instructing myself to act normal. I could no longer remember actions that were once involuntary. Open door. Put seat belt on. Put key in the ignition. Put car in Drive. I did, however, turn off the radio and drove home in complete silence. I suddenly had the urge to run away on the drive home, but I had no idea what I would be running from. So, I just went home. That would be the only night I would sleep soundly in months. I had no idea at the time.
I also had no idea that I would think about this woman every day for a year and a half. I had no idea what dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder would be like. I, unfortunately, found out very quickly. It’s been many months, and I still cry about it all the time. Even after all these months, with all of the strides I have made to eat, sleep, and function properly, every now and again I fall apart.
There aren’t a lot of positives to traumatic situations, and more than not there are none. But I was one of the lucky ones. I’ve seen a part of the world a lot of people haven’t. I can’t necessarily tell you why that’s beneficial to me, but something inside of me just knows that it is. I will admit that after the accident, I was exhausted with the number of people saying, “Oh I’m so sorry this has happened to you.” The truth is: nothing happened to me. I was able to be a part of something so much bigger than myself; I was able to be with somebody as they died. If I hadn’t been there, she would have been alone. There are still so many things I wish I could have done differently. I still lug around immense guilt with me wherever I go. I used to want to forget everything about that night. But the way that traumatic memory works is complicated; I can’t remember everything that once played on a loop in my head for months and months on end. All this time later and I still have so much to figure out, but I’ve come to a conclusion for the meantime: I’m somewhere in between who I once was and who I am supposed to be, and I think that’s good for now.