Gone in a Moment

“Dad, are we almost there?” Jamie asks from the backseat, her face lit up with the magic of the Christmas season, her body practically vibrating with excitement.

“We’re getting close. Maybe twenty more minutes,” I reply from the driver’s seat.

Light snow is falling, and the glow of the Christmas lights strung outside the local businesses creates a warmness in my chest, happiness bubbling brightly and flowing out toward my extremities. I smile at the view outside the front windshield, a feeling of nostalgia pulling me back to Christmastime as a child. The excitement of the season, intensified by every highly-anticipated tradition, plays in my memory.

Decorating the Christmas tree and setting out the hand-painted Santas and snowmen.

Putting together the nativity scene.

Secretly crafting hand-made gifts for my parents and siblings.

Riding around town, ranking the homes with the best Christmas light displays.

Meeting Santa to give him our lists.

Competing with each other to create the best gingerbread houses.

Baking cookies with mom.

Christmas caroling through the neighborhood.

Attending Christmas Eve mass and then racing home to get ready for Santa.

Searching the skies for Rudolph’s nose.

Reading The Night Before Christmas before being tucked into bed.

I remember the long days of waiting for Christmas Day to finally arrive. Funny how that changes when you get older. Now, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas feels like a chaotic whirlwind, and each year, before I know it, the New Year has begun, and I’ve practically missed the holiday. This year, I have tried to be more intentional about being present in each moment with the kids. As I think about our Christmas season this year, I reach over to grab my wife’s hand and squeeze it. This really has been the best year in a long time. I hope to hold these memories forever.

We’re on our way to Atlanta to pick up my parents from the airport. They will be staying with us for the week of Christmas. I’m not sure who is more excited - my mom and dad or the kids. I turn up the radio, Nat King Cole serenading us with “Deck the Halls”. Jamie and Nick from the backseat start to join in, their sweet voices filling the car.

I can’t believe how much Jamie has grown up this year. When she started the sixth grade, she was often shy and quiet, hiding behind her books when she felt unsure of herself. Her self-esteem has really blossomed since then. She found the courage to run for student council and tried out for the volleyball team, where she made friends with a great group of girls. Her confident smile in the backseat makes my heart beam with pride. I’m so proud of her.

Nick is a few years younger, and it sometimes still shocks me that he’s a second grader and not in kindergarten. His curiosity and mischievous smile make me chuckle.

As I glance at them in the rearview mirror, both with dark brown hair like mine and blue eyes like their mother, I send up a prayer of gratitude. We have been so blessed to have healthy and happy children.

The traffic is getting heavier as we get closer to the airport. My wife tenses next to me as the vehicles close in on all sides. She hates Atlanta traffic. Growing up in southwest Georgia, she prefers the relaxed pace and quiet country roads of her small hometown. She gets nervous even driving around Albany, where we live now, during rush hour, so there was no way she was volunteering to drive to Atlanta.

Which is fine by me. I prefer the responsibility of keeping my family safe. My dad told me, even as a young boy, that to be a man meant that I get to be a protector. And I’ve taken that role very seriously, particularly since I’ve become a father.

Putting my turn signal on, I check my mirrors and carefully switch lanes.

“So, what are you guys most looking forward to this Christmas?”

“I can’t wait to bake Christmas cookies!” Nick exclaims. “Mom, you promise to make the gingerbread ones this year?”

My wife smiles and looks at him in the rearview mirror. “Promise.”

“What about you, Jamie?” I ask.

She smiles, her blue eyes sparkling. “I really want to see the lights at Christmas Village this year. Do you think we’ll have time to do that?”

“I think we can make that happen,” I promise.

All of a sudden, a cacophony of car horns blare and red taillights light up the roadway. I can’t yet see what’s causing the traffic disturbance. Cars ahead of us start to swerve towards the right, and now headlights glare ahead of me, temporarily blinding my vision. I act on instinct, and swerve to the left.

Metal crunches, my head is thrown forward and my seatbelt strains against my chest. The car starts spinning. Screams rend the small space as I struggle to regain control of the vehicle. I slam my foot into the brake pedal as I try to right the wheel.

They say your life flashes before your eyes in life-and-death moments. That’s not what I experience now. It feels like the world stops and slows as our car is in a seemingly never-ending spiral. My hearing becomes muffled as time slows down, the piercing screams unable to overcome the rush of blood roaring in my ears. My heart thuds in my chest, my breath catches in my throat. My mind races with panic even as time seems to stand still, bracing myself for another impact.

The car eventually stops. The entire episode lasts only seconds, but the moment felt as though it would never end.

I take a quick inventory of myself. No cuts that I can see. No pain that I can feel, even though I’m sure my adrenaline is masking it.

“Is everyone ok?” I ask, my voice coming out in a croak.

My wife moves next to me and in a shaky voice answers that she is alright.

“I’m ok, dad,” Nick answers. “Jamie?” he asks.

My wife and I turn toward the backseat. Jamie is slumped against the car door, blood running down her face from a wound near her temple. Her eyes are closed. And she doesn’t respond.

“Jamie?” I ask again, in a louder voice.

“Jamie!’ my wife says, her voice becoming shrill as she grapples with the door handle to get out.

I can’t breathe. She’s fine. She’s just knocked out, I reason as I reach for my door handle. She has to be okay.

I round the back of the car to get to her side, the faint whir of sirens rising out of the distance. Glass crunches under my shoes, and I notice how the rear-right passenger door bore the brunt of the impact.

I quickly open the door and reach for my daughter. I shake her slightly, yelling, “Jamie! Jamie, can you hear me?”

All of the things I’ve learned about CPR over the years get stuck in my mind, unable to process through my panic. I shouldn’t move her if she has a head or neck injury, right?

“Is she breathing?” my wife asks, pushing my hands away as she grabs Jamie’s wrist, feeling for a pulse.

“Oh my God! I don’t feel a pulse. Jamie! Jamie! Help us! Someone call 911!” Seeing my wife’s composure crumple completely guts me. She’s the calm, steady force behind our marriage. I need her to be the reasonable one. Because there is no way I can keep the wave of hysteria and terror from overtaking me.

She starts to hyperventilate, her gasping breaths a high-pitched wheeze. I unbuckle Jamie’s seatbelt and pull her to the ground, unmindful of the slivered glass littering the road as I kneel beside her. I put the heel of my hand on her sternum and start compressing her chest, praying and pleading with God to save my little girl.

The sirens are now screaming, and there is a clamoring of people starting to surround us. The doors to an ambulance burst open and before I know it, I’m being pulled off my daughter. The paramedics take over CPR as they hastily strap her to a backboard and whisk her away into the ambulance.

“Let us take you to the hospital,” a police officer offers. I take one last look at our car, my son climbing out of the back seat. His haunted expression mirrors my own.

***

What if we had gotten out of the house and on the road ten minutes earlier?

What if I had bought the newest model of the Honda that featured side airbags?

What if I had swerved right instead of left?

Six other cars had been hit by the wrong-way driver. He eventually crashed into a concrete barrier after hitting us. There were a few other injuries, but no one else had been seriously hurt. The cops came back to the emergency room to let us know the driver was drunk, way above the legal limit.

What if he had chosen to have a designated driver instead? Then maybe my daughter, my sweet Jamie, would still be alive.

The doctors told us it appeared she died from blunt force trauma to her head when it was smashed against the passenger door, the impact being hard enough to cause immediate death.

Their words didn’t make sense at first. They have the wrong patient. There’s no way they could be talking about Jamie.

We continue to sit in silent disbelief, waiting for the coroner to arrive. My wife and I clutch each other, trying to understand this reality that we’ve been thrown into upon hearing Jamie didn’t survive.

She had her whole life ahead of her. And she had only just started coming into her own. Her compassion and kindness made her mother and I think she would make a great healthcare provider or a wonderful teacher, bringing sunshine to everyone in her path. She was supposed to grow up, have late nights with friends, have her first kiss, attend her high school graduation. She was supposed to find a fulfilling career. She was supposed to fall in love and start a family.

But her future has now been stolen from her. Her effervescence, her zest for life, was extinguished in a blink of an eye.

I recognize that I am in shock. I feel numb. My eyes feel gritty and dry, stinging with the need to cry. My throat is tight, constricting, almost as though the sobs that want to escape are lodged and choking me. The grief I feel sits heavily on my chest, feeling as though it is permanently embedding itself into my soul, like a faithful companion I never wanted.

If I would have swerved right instead of left, would Jamie still be here? I’m trying to grapple with the fact that one, split-second decision has altered the course of all of our lives forever. The unfairness of it all stabs my heart, revealing glimmers of the anger I know will eventually come in my grieving process. Unfortunately, there’s no do-overs. There’s no way to go back in time and erase our tragedy.

When they tell you life is precious, to treat each moment like it could be your last, most of us can understand the sentiment. But you never really believe something like this could happen to your family. And now that it has, I’m not sure how we will survive it.

I look over and see my son, the lost expression in his eyes. I reach over, pull him into my chest, and pray for the courage and strength I will need to keep going. To put one foot in front of the other. To get out of bed in the days to come. Because my wife and my son are still here. And although Jamie’s life is over, we still need to live for each other. And we still need to live for her, keeping her memory alive, so her life will not be forgotten.

In loving memory of Jamie Chapman.