The rise of the sun and the time on the clock would tell you it was morning but being up all night made it seem surreal, I had survived 12 hours, 12 hours knowing that I would never see or touch or spend time with Robbie in a physical sense ever again and now what? I needed to check things off the list…calls to the funeral home, insurance company, make arrangements, go to my car, so many things to do.
My first call was to the insurance company because I knew I could reach them at the crack of dawn on the 24 hour line. Thank God, the woman I got was amazing and even cried as I explained what I knew of the night before. She told me what to do, what to expect, how logistically that part would work. I started to process that we were eventually going to get to my car that day to get Rob’s things and see the damage. I had so many questions but my biggest concerns were did he suffer and did he know he was taking his last breaths. My next call was to the funeral home where they told me Robbie had been taken only to find out that was not the case…he had been taken to the hospital bc no one knew where we wanted him to be taken (I was grateful bc there was a much more fitting funeral home for him) but I was frustrated too. On to the next task, get a shower, get around, Tim and I need to get Chris (my biggest concern was how Chris and Ky were going to handle and survive this ordeal), and go to the car. I would say by 10:00 we had arrived at the shop that had picked up my car (or well Rob’s car – he had been driving my car from the time he got his license bc we had a gazillion issues with his from the moment we bought it and we had basically decided it was his).
I remember at some point before we got to the car my sister being very concerned and asking did I really want to see it…my response, yes, I need to, I need to know. Ironically, I had asked the same question of Chris to be sure that is what he wanted and his response was just about the same as mine. As we headed to the car my brother-in-law made calls and arrangements with the funeral home we knew would help us through this and was in the best location for Rob. This was one set of calls I could not make myself.
Back to the car, as we pulled in and got out the car had a tarp covering it but there was one of Rob’s friends there looking for Ky’s phone. He hadn’t been able to find it but I could hear it vibrating as I walked up to the car, Chris walks to the passenger side and immediately finds it. Phew, Ky will have her phone, I had a need to find it along with her glasses and two pairs of crocs for her and her mom. You see, Robbie loved to wear Kacie’s crocs and had just told us the night before she would give him the business about wearing them but he thought she had gotten him his own pair for Christmas. Chris and I am not sure who else started trying to get all of Rob’s clothes and belongings out of the car….he was a damn gypsy so you can imagine what we found or actually didn’t find would be better. Some where is this time I realized, holy shit, they were going backwards when they hit the tree…but wait how does that happen? Another of my questions was answered, Rob had no idea that they were going to hit the tree because he was facing the other way. This was also something that freaked me out…well, had he known he was headed toward the tree and knew what the outcome would be.
As we gathered there were things that I noticed and gave me a great deal of peace. I noticed that his school bag and some of his clothes were saturated in gas…and it occurred that the gas tank had been crushed. Chris says mom, how did this car not catch fire, they are so lucky. Warning – this next piece is going to be really hard for some of you to read so proceed with caution…. Clearly, the car was demolished and based on what was right in front of us it was apparent that Rob didn’t not suffer and passed on impact. I am sorry if that sounds morbid but (insert my lights in my house are flashing as I typed the last sentence) it answered questions I was freaking out about in my own mind. I expected to find a scene that was bloody and would destroy me and that is not what I found. I found a car with almost every airbag deployed and in worse condition than I have ever seen but not one drop of blood (when you send the insurance adjuster pictures and his only response is, Wow, I think that says something).
I took pictures, a lot of pictures because I knew later we would have questions that we would need to look back at the pics for answers. But I had already found miracles in this tragedy – no suffering, no blood (idk why that was important to me but it was)…, a car that should have very likely caught fire did not, going backwards meant Rob had no idea what was going to happen, and Ky had gotten out, they were able to rip the door open and get her out…the car looked like a damn tuna can that had been run over and yet she essentially walked away – if that was the only miracle that would be enough but I found more. It took us awhile to clean out the car and to be satisfied we had seen what we needed to in order to have closure and we took a drive to the scene of the accident. Tim, Chris and I walked the very road where the accident happened. Again, something we needed to do for closure…Chris and I have very logical brains and a significant need to understand what happened. As we walked the scene we could see how the accident happened. We had answers, we understood, that was helpful.
We leave and head to the funeral home and wait for a while as we wanted to see Rob but that didn’t work out and we made arrangements to return the following day. I think this is when I sent a message to Ky’s mom that we had all of the things that were in the car and we found out Ky was right down the street from where we live. Not that we could see her bc of COVID but she was close by.
We made our way home so Chris and I could get some sleep. I remember Tim feeding us and taking phones and being very demanding about us getting rest. I remember being so frigging thankful that he was holding everything else together for us and that I could close my eyes and know he would keep an eye on Chris to be sure he was ok. At some point that evening Chris and I were talking about the accident and the car and he said “Mom, Kyleigh’s air bag didn’t go off. I told him I took pics just for this reason bc I knew we’d have questions…so we started looking and you will not believe what we saw….every airbag but those right around her went off. Why? Because even though the car was demolished the sensors for those airbags did not have significant impact. It wasn’t a fault, it was spot on, as we looked at more pics it was as if Ky was in a bubble, protected, saved, she was meant to survive this and that was so clear. Keep tallying those miracles….they are throughout this entire story.
Again, to be continued….
Комментарии