This is part 2 of a 3 part series. To visit part 1, click here.
As I sat sobbing in the store frightened that my friend was dead after being struck by a truck, the cashier just held me. She offered to call my mom and I gave her the number. I waited around twenty minutes. My mom didn’t come. I decided to head toward home when I saw my mom in the road with Joy and the paramedics. I selfishly felt hurt that my mom was helping Joy and there was no longer anyone to hold me. I learned later the man who’d struck my friend Joy was a volunteer firefighter and likely saved her life.
Various tidbits of gossip spread through the neighborhood quickly. Most people seemed to have believed it was me who was hit. As I walked through my neighborhood, I approached the home where Joy’s younger sister was being babysat by their neighbor. I filled them in on what I had seen. Shortly thereafter Joy’s mother pulled into her driveway not knowing what had happened. I delivered the news of her worse fear. I believe she too thought it might have been me in the road.
I can remember almost everything about Joy when I saw her in the road that day. I remember her pink and white plaid button-up shirt with her cut-off shorts and her L.A. Gear shoes. I remember the way her eyes looked when she was unconscious too. I began to recall the way she ran into the road, though I don’t know that I actually ever witnessed that. I really think she believed she could make it if she ran fast enough.
Joy’s accident has changed me so much. I thank God she survived. I wish that I could say the same Joy came back. Instead, she was in a coma for quite some time. She had severe brain damage and is disabled to this day. Though not much hope was given for her, I have heard of progress that might be small to some but I imagine is large for Joy and her family.
After Joy’s accident, I was told Joy’s sister wasn’t to play with me. In fact, Joy’s father who’d been divorced from her mother, made sure his co-worker, who was the dad of a good friend of mine, knew that I was bad news, and even she was not supposed to be with me (though thankfully her mother felt differently). I believe it was easier to blame me since Joy was with me that day. It was this that scarred me most emotionally, because I began to believe maybe I was somehow responsible.
Years of psychiatric therapy helped me realize it probably could have been anyone there with her. I never wanted my friend hurt. I visited her every month for quite some time so she would know I cared and hadn’t forgotten her. When I visited her, I saw a different person though. I don’t know if she ever remembered me. Eventually I stopped visiting and stopped obsessing about the tragedy.
Please continue on to part 3 for the conclusion.
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Melissa is a Families.com Christian Blogger. Read her blogs at: http://members.families.com/mj7/blog