March 4, 2000. a night alone, a brain too full of painful memories.
One of the hardest things about going through Mary's and Russ's things are finding the little presents that they planned to give to us or our babies.
Today I found a cute book called "Undersea Open Sesame". It's a pull-out book of sea creatures that go "Peek-a-boo!". Stacey says she found it in Mom's things. She probably planned to give it to the little guy for Christmas or his birthday. It's so hard to think that she never had the joy of watching him play with it.
For me there's a book for doing home improvement projects. I never got a chance to thank Mary for it. I never even knew she had it saved for me. It's a good book.
It's so hard to think of them being gone. I'll always remember the last thing Mary said to me. She didn't actually say it, not with that tube in her throat, but she mouthed very clearly, "I love you", and smiled. The next time I saw her, she was completely paralyzed from the medication and her lungs were filling with the fluid that would soon kill her. The doctors said she could hear us, so I sat by her side and told her how much we loved and needed her. We stayed with her until she died, just a few days later. I'll never to be able to forget, after her heart stopped and they had disconnected the ventilator. There she lay, the room was finally so quiet. Just the sound of her blood bubbling up through the trach tube. then the doctor came in to write the death certificate. He pulled her eyelids back to check her pupils. They were just wide open and fixed. Then it really, really hit. She just wasn't there any more. Tony the ventilator technician mentioned that they had done a blood workup that morning. Her blood oxygen content was 49%. Her eyes had been fixed and dilated. I asked him, "that's just like she was on Mount Everest, isn't it?". He looked kinda surprised and said, "yes, it is, I suppose". She was already dead that morning. Her brain probably stopped working during the night. Consciousness gone. It took all day for her heart to finally stop beating. We had asked before whether there was anything that could be used, her heart, kidneys, anything. Mary was such a giving person, we knew she would have wanted at least that. They told us there probably wasn't anything left that was of much use. The doctor said "Well, we'll have the cornea guy come over from UMC. Maybe they can use those." We told them, for what it was worth, that she had perfect eyesight. She only needed glasses to read.
Mary died the same day that 13 years earlier, Stacey and I had our first date. October 31st. 1999, 3:30 PM. She was just gone. I held her hand. It was already cold.
A viewing? God, how morbid. It was hard enough visiting Mary. She was still in intensive care, both legs and an arm in casts, plus a big sign above her head - "Spinal - don't move". It seemed sick, little lemon cookies on one of Mary's trays, coffee and juice for the thirsty. There was a whole crowd of people there. Russ and Mary had a lot of friends, touched a lot of lives. It was certainly evident today. We went in to go see him, Ry and I. Him just eight months old in my arms - kick, kick, kick. Not understanding, not knowing. Not for a long time yet. There was the grandfather that held him when he was just a few hours old - carried him on his back, played with him, bragged about him. There with his eyes closed, hair and mustache perfectly combed and trimmed, skin covered with lifelike makup. Hands laid out across his chest, in a plain wooden casket with a cardboard lining. I don't think he would have approved. He probably would have said, if he had the chance, if he had known he was going to die, "Don't stare at me. Scatter my ashes over the mountains". That's what Stacey and I think he would have liked. We'll take some of his ashes to the Jemez, to the ski area where I first met him and Stacey, and had so many fun days together. We'll take more to the Missouri Breaks, a place Russ was mightily impressed with, and to his boyhood home in South Dakota. I think he would have liked that.
For now, he was still in that damn casket, all painted up for the sightseers. Was I the only one who noticed that his chest had been crushed by the impact with the steering wheel? Was I the only one that remembered that his last words to Carl were to stop the pain, knock him out, anything, he couldn't stand the pain. Last time I saw him alive, a month earlier, I shook his hand before I left for Tucson with Stacey and Ry. Him with that firm handshake and big smile. I knew he approved of me, was probably thinking about the fun we'd have skiing together this winter. Now he was there, eyes closed, with that perfectly trimmed mustache. I touched his hand. It was cold and stiff. He wasn't there any more. Ry kicked, I said goodbye. "I'll try to raise him right," I said. "I wish you were going to be here to teach him how to play baseball. I can't play worth a damn.". We think Russ always wanted to have boys. He loved his two girls, but I think he really wanted boys. That's probably why he was so excited about Ry, a beautiful boy. Ry was only eight months old. He'd never know his grampa Russ.
After the crash, Stacey could hear Russ in the front seat saying, "Help me, help me.". It turns out that before the collision, she had been leaning forward in her seat, trying to get that first glimpse of the Valles caldera. She keyed the radio to talk to Micha and Carl, and instead of friendly chatter from the "tour guide", Micha and Carl heard "Oh no!". Now the driver's seat was smashed forward, the shoulder belt so tight across Russ's body that Stacey could not even get her fingers under it. They had to cut the belt to get Russ out. Ry was crying. Carl asked Stacey if she could walk. "You'd better get into the back of the truck", he said. "It's warm in there. We'll bring the baby to you. We'll look after Russ and Mary."
I used to think that if ever I had the chance to save my family by giving my own life that I would do it out of altruism and my love for them. It turns out that I was wrong. I still would give my life in an instant, not out of love, but simply because knowing they died when I could have given myself for them would simply be too painful to bear. Russ, in his last unwitting act had cushioned Stacey's body, saving her from serious injury.
"Help me." were the last words Stacey heard her daddy say. They had all gone to the Jemez to show Micha and Carl the view, and to hear the elk bugle. I wonder, before the helicopter came, if he ever got to hear the elk.
It was September 17, 1999, about 8:30. I had just gotten home. Stacey was in New Mexico visiting her parents and showing off the baby. Our firends Micha and Carl were out there too, I think they wanted to go hiking in the Sangre de Cristos. They were staying with the Kidmans for a few days. I hadn't been home 15 minutes when the phone rang. It was Micha. She sounded like she was trying to be calm and factual, but I knew she wasn't. She kept trying to tell me that Russ, Mary, Stacey and me were in a traffic accident, that I was hurt. I kept asking her, "what are you trying to say?", she couldn't get it out. I heard Carl in the background say "Gimme that phone. Joe," he said, "There's been an accident. You need to get out here right away. Stacey and Ry are OK, but Russ and Mary are hurt pretty bad.". He gave me some details on the phone. They were up in the Jemez on State Road 4. Russ was going to take them all to hear the elk. It was rutting season and apparently the elk were in full form. Carl says they came around a turn and there was this car in their lane, coming straight at them. Russ was in front. He tried to sidle to the right, but there was a guard rail, so he swerved left at the last minute, a half second too late. I told Carl I didn't know if I could make it that night. There probably weren't any flights. Carl said "do whatever you can, Stacey needs you.". It turns out that there was a Delta flight that night, late. I called, got a reservation, packed some stuff, called my friends Martin and Kitty, gave them the keys, emailed work and headed to the airport. The flight was an hour late. It turns out that my boss's boss was there, heading to a tennis weekend in Albuquerque. When I told him what was up, he said no problem. Take as much time as you need. If you need a place to stay, call me. It was comforting, but Carl had said it was really bad. Where was that damn plane? Something like this can't happen to us, can it? Everyone was still alive, at least, as far as I knew then.
It turns out it wasn't an accident. Carl wouldn't commit to saying it was a drunk, deputy Baker wouldn't either. A few weeks later I called Baker and he gave me the news, BAC .15. Garcia was going to be charged. Some solace, I guess. Now it was a crash. Criminal charges. Russ was still dead. It didn't change a thing, it just made me more angry. Somehow, I had been trying to give the other guy the benefit of the doubt, but there was no way now. He was a drunk. One of those sorry lives that never manage to screw up just themselves. How come he didn't just drive into a tree or off a cliff? It would have been easier on all of us. It didn't help digging up his record either. Five prior DUI's. Previous jail time. Diversion programs. And he was still out there screwing life up for the rest of us. If his life was so horrible that he didn't care what he did to himself, why did he have to drag us into it? Did he have a conscience? Did he care at all? From what I heard he had said at LAMC, apparently not. "It's not my fault! he screamed repeatedly. Mary was in the next room, heard all of it. No conscience at all. Just wanted to save his sorry hide. December 22, "not guilty". March 3, "not guilty". He wouldn't take the plea agreement. Now we'll have to endure a trial. Will justice be done? We won't know for months. Is it really justice anyway? Russ and Mary are still dead, Ry still grows up without his Nana and Grampa, even if Garcia spends the rest of his life in prison. In the meantime, he walks, breathes, eats, sees the sunsets, and is free. A drunk, with five prior convictions, sponging off of the State's indigent health care program, spending taxpayer's money, free to live after ending two lives so much more productive and giving than his.
I got to the Albuquerque University hospital about 1:30 in the morning. I spied Carl in the parking lot. "Joe, it's good to see you," he said. "Let me ride with you while you park". He got in, we found a space. "I should tell you now," he said. "Russ didn't make it. He was dead when the helicopter got here." Oh god. I just stopped for a minute, took a deep breath. "Let's go see Stacey. Does she know yet?". Carl didn't think so. We went in through the emergency room, but Stacey was in pediatrics, where they had taken Ry. There she was, on this gurney, staring at the ceiling. I held her hand, stroked her hair. She seemed extremely dazed. Her legs were really banged up, she had a bandage on her arm. "Joe? Are you here? I can't believe it! How did you get here so fast?" "I took a late flight out of Tucson. I'm so sorry to hear about Russ." Stacey laid there, motionless. The look on her face, that look of such incredible fatigue and sadness, made her look like she was a hundred years old. More than that. She looked ancient - her eyes an infinite distance away. I had never seen her like that. I wonder if she had thought yet what I had thought, that it would have been her in that front passenger seat, if Mary had decided not to go to see the elk. That if I had decided to come that weekend, it would probably have been me. I followed when she was taken to the emergency room. It was a nasty puncture in her arm, and the doctor didn't know if the joint was going to get infected. He squeezed about a hundred mils of saline into her arm. Stacey didn't like that one bit, but the saline didn't come back out of the hole. She got a tetanus shot and we were out to see Mary. Good thing too. The guy in the next room was trying to kill himself. the whole bloody ER was filled with drunks, gunshot victims and losers. Friday night. I'm so glad I never worked as an EMT.
When I first saw Mary in the trauma unit, she was awake and talking a mile a minute. I couldn't understand a word she was saying, because the oxygen cannula was in her mouth instead of her nose. I moved it back to her nose. She made a little more sense. The adrenaline must have really been pumping. She was in take charge mode, she was the nurse. She wanted to know what was wrong with her, what the doctors were saying. She knew I would tell her all the things that they wouldn't. So I did. "You have two broken legs, Mary, your femurs, close to your knees. they are going to have to pin them. Your right arm is broken in two places". "I can't see straight", she said. I said, "your right eye is pointing in, it's probably from the hematoma. The doctors say it's not serious. They just gave you a CAT scan." It wasn't until later that we found out that her eye wasn't off because of her head, it was off because of her neck. That she had almost died before she ever got to the hospital. In retrospect it might have been easier if she hadn't made it here. She knew she was in for a long hard fight, but we didn't know yet it was a losing one. Maybe she did then. I told her she was going to be at Ry's college graduation, that she was going to see him get a real job. "Oh, I don't think I'll live that long", she said. "Yes you will", I said, "you have to. We need you." There are a lot of people that need you". I didn't tell her about Russ, Stacey did. How hard can that be? I don't know. Tell your own mother, your best friend, that her husband, your father, was dead? I hope I don't ever know how hard that was. Two weeks before Mary died, Stacey was having Mary spell out a sentence in her hand. She got as far as "im dy-". Stacey made her stop. Mary knew. Stacey didn't want to know. When I sat with Mary, talked to her, I could see the tears. Russ was gone. She knew.
While Mary was in TCI (Trauma - Intensive Care Unit), I'd talk to her, tell her stories. Her eyes would be closed, seemingly unresponsive. But every once in a while, I'd see tears roll down her cheeks. Was it the pain? Her blood pressure was sky high. Or was she thinking about Russ and her family? The friends she knew she would be leaving behind? I don't know.
Back in Los Alamos, I looked through the things that were recovered from the car. I was looking for some of Stacey's stuff, including a package of pictures and enlargements of Ry playing with a water fountain that Stacey really wanted. I found a book that was in Mary's purse. "How to get people to vote" was the gist of the title. Probably something she was reading for her Civitan's club. I sat for a while and cried. I never did find the pictures.
The only innocent. What can I say about him? Our lifeblood? Our anchor? I first saw him after the crash in the pediatrics after his checkup. Micha was holding him. He was screaming. I held him. He quieted down. He looked fine. What a trooper. Maybe I realized then that he was going to be our savior. Innocent, completely clueless of the things bigger than him going on around him. Just wanting mommy, daddy, food, sleep and clean pants. What else should there be? There have been many times since then that I have longed for his innocence. One day we'll have to tell him. About his Nana that held him those first few weeks when his mom and dad tried to get some sleep. About his grampa that was so proud of him and carried him around everywhere, that sang silly songs to him when he cried and didn't want to nap. Nana and grampa saw him often before that night. If he wasn't visiting them, then they were visiting him, driving out to see him and play with him. Stacey called almost every night with the latest news. Nana was always so happy to hear.
I told Mary stories about Ry in the hospital. She smiled big smiles, tried to show us she was laughing at our stories about him. She wanted to see him, the doctors wouldn't let it happen. the risk of infection was too great. Hospital policy. Babies were a danger to everyone. Mary had VRE (vancomycin resistant enterococcus, a bug that was resistant to the strongest antibiotics available. It was attacking Mary, who had never had antibiotics in her life) and resistant strains of pneumonia. Ry could give her some other bug. All we could do was assure her he was fine. Just a bump on the knee. She would have loved to see him one last time.