All That Matters | Teen Ink

All That Matters MAG

April 28, 2015
By ShelbyStanke BRONZE, Portland, Michigan
ShelbyStanke BRONZE, Portland, Michigan
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Favorite Quote:
“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.”
-Unknown


There are moments of complete serenity and clarity in your life that only happen if you take the time to see them: beautiful, white, light, and slow, drifting clouds, complete silence, the moments with no thoughts, and the spin where nothing exists. These are the most amazing moments. You learn to appreciate. You learn to let things be as they may. This moment of clarity with my father holding my hand in the trauma ward is when I got my dad back and realized that I actually had him all along. All we needed was some perspective.

  • • •

My eyelids fluttered open to a new world completely. I woke up not knowing where I was or what had happened, but in that moment, nothing seemed important. My world was blurry and slowly toppled over itself in waves. Dust and smoke swam in front of my eyes, and fire-retardant filled my lungs, but I wasn’t focused on that. What I remember is the sunlight softly glimmering through the clouds of dirt on the other side of my shattered windshield. It was transcendent and graceful and breathtaking. In that moment, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It fell so softly upon the grievous scene. There were no thoughts in my mind. No words, faces, or memories existed for me in that moment; all I knew was that light. It was so white and pure and calming; a complete contrast to the scene I was in. Closing my eyes for a moment, I enjoyed the nothing. It was peaceful, quiet. Complete bliss. It felt as though I was the only person in the world. Then I opened my eyes.

Dirt, dust, and grit covered every inch of me. Scorched rubber and exhaust stung my nostrils, clouding my thoughts. My fingers twitched and slowly began to fumble in the wreckage, trying to make sense of what had happened. Pieces of upholstery, metal, and plastic were scattered beneath me. Edges of seats and dashboard jutted out like knives, inches from my body. This doesn’t make sense. Closing my eyes again, I tried to remember.

I remember being almost home, my car rumbling down the dirt road, bumping over the myriad tiny potholes. Yes, I was going fast. Just 30 more feet and I would have been home. I only needed to grab something I’d forgotten before heading to a friend’s house. I knew where it was. I was almost home.

Suddenly the potholes weren’t just small bumps, they were chatter bumps. The steering wheel shook, and I was starting to skid.

It’s hard to call it fishtailing when the phrase doesn’t accurately capture the violence and the pure, all-consuming terror of the moment. It’s insidious, starting out small, like a sway. As the swaying grows, your fear grows. You spend more time sideways than forward, and it keeps building, fast. Your heart begins to feels as if it is outside your body, and that’s when you start to spin. I remember the spinning more than anything.

In movies, this is where my life would flash before my eyes, but in reality, there are no thoughts suitable enough to imagine when you think that they might be your last. All your mind gives you is a moment: the longest, most silent, most abstract moment of your life because it is not ready to be over.

From the spin comes the crash. And the scream of twisting metal. And the flip. When you are midair, time seems to stop; before the plummeting tailspin back down to the earth, there is complete darkness for a moment and nothing really exists to you. You feel fear, but in this moment you also feel calm. You accept that whatever is going to happen will happen, and there is nothing you can do.

  • • •

When I was little, I was Daddy’s princess and he was my best friend. This meant naps on his chest on the living room floor, eating smoked fish together on the front porch, using his shoulders as my main means of transportation, and staying up later than Mommy knew to fall asleep watching Jay Leno with him. I was his baby girl and he was my big, spider-killing, piggy-backing, tickle-attacking Daddy. We have pictures of us together, our faces lit up with smiles under a swing set in the town park, back when smiles and fun were all I knew. He loved me more than anything; you could see it in the pictures. He would do anything for me, and I worshiped the ground he walked on.

Somewhere along the road, however, that changed. I matured into the adult world still holding onto the innocence of childhood. I have grown with grace into a woman I am proud of, who refuses to judge people or assume the worst. I will go far out of my way to help others. I am loving and show my affection. I put a deep value in kindness, believing it to be the driving force of the world, and whenever my father clashed with my values, it offended me deeply. He was not accepting of different lifestyles, and he did not listen. He judged openly and harshly, beating down opposing views. The way he acted and viewed things felt unfair to me. Even though I tried to see things from his perspective, I couldn’t understand him. I thought about the way he was raised and his lack of people to lean on. I thought about how hard it must be for an introvert to show emotion. I made up excuses in my head for why he was the way he was, but eventually, I stopped. My father has many positive sides, but over the years, despite my belief in seeing the good in people, I lost sight of his. He became my exception.

That is when the fights started. I would tell him that he was closed-minded and would never surrender when we argued. Every insensitive thing that he said or did, no matter how small, was a reminder of every other argument and instance we couldn’t forgive each other. All I associated my father with were foul words, demeaning comments, judgment, hate, yelling, and crying. If we weren’t fighting, we weren’t speaking. The negatives were all I could picture when I thought of him, and it filled me with sadness and disappointment that I couldn’t respect him.

At some point my father stopped being my friend. He wasn’t a father; he wasn’t someone I enjoyed; he was a man whose house I lived in.

  • • •

Zombie-like, I sat up on the ceiling of what used to be my car, with no feeling in my body, still no thoughts in my head except one: my father. He would be so disappointed in me. Again.

There was no faking this. I couldn’t roll the car back over and pretend nothing happened. I couldn’t just call it a dent. He is going to be so disappointed. I don’t know why this was the only thing I could think.

The next half hour was stop and go: gingerly climbing out of a broken window and losing consciousness again in the ditch where my car lay. Coming to and shuffling across the road into my yard. Passing out two times more before finally staggering inside.

Calling my mother, I still felt nothing, focusing only on the mechanics behind the movements needed. I thought of nothing but my father and his wrath to come. I told my mother I was okay but needed to go to the hospital just to be safe, although I knew very well that I was injured.

The whole way to the hospital I was calm. Pain rushed through my veins, but I was proud that I didn’t shed a tear despite the agony that was amplified with every turn, bump, and stop. Although my mother was hysterical from seeing my car wheels-skyward and crunched almost beyond recognition, I tried to soothe her.

Even through the doctors rolling me, through them pushing on my injured shoulder when the anguish on my face was apparent, and lifting my arm from the restricting hold of my sweatshirt, I didn’t shed a tear. An hour of prodding, rolling, and X-raying later, I lay in bed, medicated, exhausted, and still in pain.

My mother sat on next to me, finger-combing the tangles in my long hair. She told me she could tell before I said anything on the phone that something was wrong. She said she had called my father at work, saying I had had an accident. She told me about the fluster in his voice. She had been on the phone with him when she saw the wheels of my mangled car pointed to the sky, the side bent around a tree in the ditch. My stomach clenched at the thought of her agony. I could imagine her unintelligible sobs to my father. I comforted her as tears filled her eyes at the memory.

Through all of it, I kept it together. Until the moment my father stepped into that cramped trauma ward room. I expected his anger, but what I received was a complete surprise. The voice that emerged from my father was small and fragile and unsure. A voice I never would have expected from my tall, broad-shouldered, dead-eyed father. I had never seen him look worried in my 18 years. The hazel eyes that we share were glazed with concern. Once they met mine, they did not look away.

Tears welled in my eyes, and my voice caught in my throat. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” I whispered.

My father looked at me, eyes disregarding anything else but his baby girl, and I forgot about the past. An overpowering, unspoken forgiveness washed over both of us. It washed away the reservoir of anger. It washed away the hurt and distrust and disappointment. Tears streamed down my face as I sobbed my apology again.

He crossed the room to my bed and squeezed my hand.

“Are you all right? That’s all that matters.”



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memogg said...
on May. 17 2016 at 11:23 pm
Great story,had a lot of heart,and soul bareing,had a very close experience as a junior in high school. thanks for the good written story,with a family touch and heart.