Green Light, Gone

It’s crazy to think that one flash of light can be the last thing someone sees.

I was driving that night. She had wanted to wear heels to her best friend’s birthday party. They were both going to stuff down their insecurities and dress up—to support each other. She asked me to drive because of her heels and nerves while she handled the navigation.

We drove along peacefully, normally. Her, over-explaining and telling me directions twenty miles in advance as usual, her anxiety getting the better of her, and me, enjoying the drive and the wind on my face.

“Oh no!” she exclaimed suddenly, “we missed our turn back there!”

“Just breathe,” I soothed, “we’ll make it. It’s one turn. Let me see.”

She turned the screen of her phone to face me as I rolled to a stop at a red light in an under-populated intersection. She swiped vigorously at the screen to turn the brightness up so I could see where I was going.

“Oh, babe, we’re fine. I just have to go up a street and then turn left and then we’re back on the right path,” I stated reassuringly. The light turned green and I pulled cautiously into the intersection after performing the maneuver they teach you when learning how to drive. Look left, right, left, then go. Just like crossing the street.

“Babe, watch o-”, I heard her scream from the passenger side right before we were smashed into by what felt like a thick pile of concrete.

The entire car shook. I felt the power of where the truck hit her door, but not as much as she did. I couldn’t control where I was looking at the time. I kept trying to turn towards her to see if she was okay, but I was a bobblehead doll. My cranium and its contents were getting thrown around too much for me to stabilize it without potentially snapping my own neck. I succumbed to protecting myself as much as possible. Adrenaline pumped through my veins accompanied by an overwhelming panic with the epiphany that there would be no flight—the only option was to fight against the trauma my body was enduring enough to make it out the other side. Ironically, the only coherent thought I had besides concern for our survival was ‘I guess they should have taught us to look right one more time’.

After the initial impact, I remember our car being spun around and soaring over a small bump. The next thing I knew we were somersaulting quickly through the air. We landed with a resounding thunk upside down in a sea of wood chips. For a moment, it was difficult to get my bearings. My brain couldn’t seem to comprehend which end was up. As I slowly became less shell shocked and more aware of reality, I realized that we were upside down in the middle of a park lit only by a few street lamps and hanging Christmas lights. It’s a wonder we didn’t roll right through the play structure.

“Wha- Shirley?!” I called out, distressed.

And then, I saw her, hanging down from the ceiling. Blood dripped from a huge gash on the right side of her head. The air bags were flapping around, deployed, but it didn’t matter. Her eyes were wide open, rolled up toward the roof of the car. They were lifeless, dull, the light in them gone. I couldn’t breathe looking at her. I couldn’t breathe being near her. So, against my higher rational logic, I unbuckled myself and scrambled ungraciously onto the splintery safety of the wood chips.

I was in shock for a long time after that. I vaguely remember calling 911 and hearing that we were involved in a drunk hit-and-run when they arrived. I didn’t see what happened to Shirley. The first responders told me that I was mostly uninjured except for a few bruises and sprains, but that I had a pretty severe concussion and shouldn’t sleep anytime soon. I tried to tell them that I didn’t think that would be a problem. No words came out. When they were talking it sounded like a faint echo of a whisper from the depths of a well an entire universe away.

A few days later, I was called in to review the accident and autopsy reports. It was only then that I learned what had happened to Shirley when she hit her head.

The speeding truck had plowed right into the passenger door. The full force of a five thousand pound truck pushing against the flimsy door of our sedan and into her maybe one hundred and fifty pounds of flesh. The concaving of metal and muscle. The cracking and shattering of glass and bone. The crushing of internal mechanisms and organs alike. The car and her were the same. Bearing the brunt of a blow that they couldn’t survive containing inside of themselves. Energy and physics working against both of their survival.

It was actually the blow to her head that killed her. The truck’s bumper hit the door, flinging her abruptly to the left and she smacked her head on the window when her body flung back to the right. They reassured me that everything happened so quickly on her side that she probably didn’t suffer. It didn’t help much.

I might not remember much of the events of the crash, but I will always remember the second when my life was completely altered.

That split second when that light that universally means "go now, you're safe" had lost its meaning.

Green. The opposite of red. Of stop. Of “don't you dare go that way, it's not your turn”. A sign that the other driver didn’t recognize in his state.

Green like her eyes. My light. Where I felt safe.

I don't know if I'll ever feel safe again...

Drunk driving.

It's what they warn us all about in high school. We even had a fake scenario growing up that scared the living shit out of us. They took our friends out of class and let us believe they were dead. It seemed cruel at the time, but I understand now. They could have been. Any of us could have been taken at any time, for no logical reason at all. From someone's lack of responsibility and awareness.

But some people just don't notice. Or don't care. Or aren't cognizant of what they're really doing. How they hurt.

Not just those people involved, but everyone around them.

You never really understand how one moment can change you forever. People always say that and you brush them off, thinking that nothing like that could ever happen to you. Tragedy often seems very distant, until you’re right smack in the middle of it.

And now that that moment has struck, I will never see that beautiful green light in her eyes again.