It happens in the movies...
May 17 '04
The Bottom Line ...there was no happy ending; really no ending at all.
For those of you who don’t know me (which is probably most of you), I’m bob_tomato’s other half. I know many people have read and responded to Grace, Andrew’s article about our daughter, Emily. This is my perspective.
Amy
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It happens in the movies. Something unexpected and usually bad happens, and the world tips. Sometimes it’s just at a slightly rakish angle—one that makes you know something is wrong without quite noticing what it is. Other times, the camera puts you in the perspective of one who is falling, mentally, from a very great height. Everything about the way you thought you were looking at things is suddenly wrong. Images spin this way and that and you are no longer certain that anything you ever knew was real.
I never knew it could happen in real life. But in 1997, on Saturday, July 12th at around 12:30 in the afternoon, my world turned sideways.
I was never very organized, a terrible housekeeper, but I wanted to get things pulled together. I was trying to change. My mom came over to help me sort and clean and try to bring a little order to my chaos. We were in the small bedroom that my 3 kids shared—Katy and Matt in bunk beds, Emily in a toddler bed. All the kids had been growing by leaps and bounds, and it was time to get rid of all the out-grown and worn-out clothes and toys.
I don’t know exactly how long we were at it. I was tired and irritated, but the progress was encouraging. At age 5, Katy was interested in what we were doing and was sitting in the room with us as we worked. At 2 and 3, Emily and Matt were happier sitting down the hall watching Sesame Street or Blues Clues or something. I checked on them once or twice and everything was fine. Then shortly after noon, they came down the hall and announced that they wanted lunch. I told them it would be just a few more minutes—we were almost done—and they went back down the hall, I thought to watch more TV.
About 15 minutes later, I said to my mom, “I’m going to go see what kind of trouble the kids are getting into. They’re too quiet.” I walked down the hall and was looking to my left, to the family room sofa where I half expected to see that they had maybe dozed off. As I entered the room, I realized they were not where I expected to see them. It was as I scanned to the right to see the open sliding glass door that my world tipped. As I moved across the room I could see my young son standing on the top step of the pool, splashing happily in the water. “Get out of the pool,”I yelled, and his face took on the terror-stricken look of a child who has been caught. In that same moment, I saw my beautiful 2-year-old girl floating facedown next to him.
I know it was only a moment, but I will never forget the surreally beautiful halo of golden hair floating around her head. I remember the water gently moving her colorful floral dress against the back of her chubby knees. A part of me seemed to detach and watch the scene unfolding from some remote location. The part of me that was left managed to do things I didn’t know I could do.
I screamed, “Call 9-1-1,” as I scooped her tiny body out of the chilly water. My mom was on the phone calling for help, I was on the floor attempting CPR on my little daughter, and some unknown neighbor had my other two children safely corralled somewhere in the yard. I don’t really remember what happened in the following minutes until first the paramedics, and then the ambulance arrived at our house. I did everything I could do, and suddenly, I wasn’t needed anymore. Suddenly, this miniature human being who had depended on me for everything for 2-1/2 years, didn’t need anything from me anymore. Suddenly there was nothing I could do for her. Suddenly my world was different—everything had changed.
I kept my composure, I think. I called the pastor of my church. A police officer was sent to collect my father from my older daughter’s school where he was helping at a campus workday. That’s about all I remember. I don’t know who called my husband’s work and told him to come home. I don’t know who drove me to the emergency room—I know I wasn’t able to ride in the ambulance. I remember my pastor coming to the hospital, and I remember that I had to make a police statement. I remember that I was given a bag containing my daughter’s wet floral print dress, but I don’t know what happened to it—I don’t have that dress now. I know my husband arrived at the hospital and I know that we prayed.
My parents took my two older kids back to their house. Another ambulance transported my daughter from the emergency room to a regional children’s hospital. And over the next days and weeks, I began to adjust to a new kind of normal. My world had tipped, turned sideways, dumped me upside down. And after a while I figured out how to breath again, food had taste again, I knew I might someday smile again.
In the 3-1/2 weeks from the accident until she died, I changed. I thought I was weak, but I discovered that I had a strength that kept me going. I thought I was a follower, but I learned that I didn’t need the approval of others when I had important decisions to make. I learned how to hold on to hope, and I leaned how to let go. Throughout the process, there were people around us who were helpful, and some who weren’t. But I learned that I was loved in a way I had never known before.
I would have given anything to make things different. I still would. A part of me wanted to die—I felt I had to go to my angel. But of course, where I was really needed was here. I had two other beautiful children to take care of, and my husband who was hurting as much as I was. I had family and friends who were there for me, and I knew that somehow I had to stay and be there for them too.
It wasn’t like the movies. There was no happy ending; really no ending at all. I still live daily with the pain and regret. I wish things were different, but I have grown accustomed to living in a world that is slightly off kilter. There is never a day that I don’t miss my Emily, but I have adjusted to her being with me only as a memory, a whisper, a dream. It’s a new kind of normal. Nobody said I had to like it.
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Member: Amy Padgett
Location: CA Dreamin' ~ TX reality
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About Me:
Mean people suck.
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