FICTION BY ROCK
Danny's First Car
My Favorite Hot Wheels Story
    
I lost my husband Nathan to a drunk driver five years ago.  He was on his way home from the S-I-R Drag Races.  It was on Highway 18, the Widowmaker.  The drunk crossed the centerline at excessive speed.  The police estimated the impact at 150 mph.  They also told me that Nathan was going at least 80 at the time.  I could forgive him for risking and even losing his own life.  He was an adult.  It was his choice.  But our oldest son Danny was asleep in the back seat at the time, and I can never forgive Nathan for that.
   
The impact drove the steering column, the dashboard, the firewall and most of the engine through the driver’s side of the passenger compartment.  Nathan never felt a thing.  The drunk’s car was propelled upwards and the two cars literally passed through each other.
    
How can God let these things happen?  A few seconds sooner or a handful later and there would have been no collision.  But God did perform a miracle.  Danny, asleep ion the back sear was thrown forward at the first instant of impact.  He hit the back of the front seat and was deflected down to the rear floorboards.  The front seat, rather than sliding back, collapsed over him and protected him like a giant cloth and foam cocoon.  He was battered and bruised but otherwise unhurt.
     
The first emergency crews to reach the scene did not find him.  They had no reason to think that anyone could have survived such a crash.  They did not find him in fact until the tow truck arrived to separate the vehicles.  Danny’s hand popped out of the driver’s side of what had been our car.  It took another hour to pry him out with the Jaws of Life.  When they pulled him free they couldn’t find a scratch.  The real pain was never physical.
    
Can anyone imagine the terror that little boy must have felt?  Pinned, in the dark, not able to move or even cry out for help, as his father lay silent above him?  Hearing conversations of people not more than a few feet away and not able to do anything to get their attention?
    
Be that as it may, he is a little boy.  His body at least, recovered quickly, the bruises fading to a bad memory in a couple of week’s time.  But his mind, his soul was bruised far worse.  And I was blind to it.

His younger brother, David, three at the time, was sad to know his father was gone.  But, being only three didn’t really grasp the finality of it, his father quickly fading from his memory. Oh, he would say, in the heartbreakingly sober and serious manner that only a three-year-old can, “My Daddy’s in Heaven, with God” when anyone would mention Nathan.
   
But Danny, Danny was five, apple of his father’s eye.  Just at the age when boys start to share “man things” with their Dads.  Danny retreated into a shell.  He would go for days on end without speaking.  And worse, he never cried.  I was so wrapped up in my own grief that my little boy got lost.  Maybe I thought I cried enough for the both of us.  I don’t remember.  But if that is what I felt, I was wrong.  You cannot do the crying for your children.
  
School started up almost a month to the day after the accident.  The counselors cleared Danny to attend classes, saying that interaction with other children would help speed the healing.  Maybe with other children, but not with Danny.  My once bright, happy child became a silent, surly recluse in the classroom.  And even more troubling, at recess he turned into the class bully, pushing down the smaller children and even cowing the larger boys with unbridled aggression.  All the psychologist could tell me was; “your son has some unresolved issues regarding the death of his Father”.  For this I was paying $65 an hour?  We stopped seeing the shrink.
       
A year passed. Danny didn’t change.  Then one Saturday I went up to the attic.  Both boys were with their Nanna and I decided it was time to go through some of Nathan’s personal belongings.  It was while going through an old chest that I came upon a small white box.  On the top was written, “NATHAN”S FIRST CAR 1969”.  Carefully lifting the lid I found, sitting in cotton, a small light blue car, its plastic dome cracked, wheels pointed downward at a sharp angle, edges worn smooth from play.  The Redlines on the wheels were surprisingly sharp.  I smiled when I looked at it.  I had never seen this car before, but given Nathan’s love of cars it did not surprise me that he had kept it.  I quickly finished going through the rest of the chest.  I still do not know why I took the little car and its box downstairs with me.  I was sitting at the dinning room table absentmindedly rolling the car between my hands when the boys walked in.  Danny took one look at the car and froze.  His face drained of all color and suddenly he screamed, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY DADS CAR?!?  THAT’S NOT YOURS!!!  HE WAS SAVING IT FOR ME!!!”  Then, ripping it from my hands he went tearing down the hall to his room, slamming and locking the door behind him.  I chased down the hall after him, wondering what I had done.  I slid to my knees as I reached the door, calming my voice even as my heart pounded in my throat.  “Danny, I’m sorry honey.  I didn’t know.  Your Dad never told me.”  I listened at the door, hearing my worst fear.  Silence.  “Honey, please open the door” I pleaded.
    
It took maybe a few seconds, or minutes.  But it seemed like hours, and then, the soft click of the door lock.  The door moved quietly open and then a blur as my arms were now full of a sobbing little boy.  His body racked with spasms as our tears mingled together and soaked my blouse.  All of the steps resolving grief, all of the pent up misery of that lost year spilled out of my sweet son in one tremendous rush.  He cried for his Father, he cried for all the wrongs he had done to his friends, brother and to me.  And finally, at last, he cried for himself.  The real healing began that day.  The day I found the little car in the white box.
   
The other day I went into Danny’s room while he was at school.  Once again near the top of his class and very popular besides, just to tidy up a bit.  Dust, vacuum, and pick up dirty underwear, you know, Mom things.  I looked at the nightstand next to his bed and on it was the little car perched on top of its white box.  I picked up the car to look at it and notice some new writing on the box.  Under “NATHAN’S FIRST CAR 1969” was printed “MINE TOO. DANNY 1993”
    
With Love to single Moms everywhere, ROCK
Sabrin's Story
           
My youngest daughter had multiple sclerosis.  It was unusual in her that it came on when she was very young, before she even learned how to walk.  Her real name was Carol but after the diagnosis of the disease I took to calling her Sabrina.  I’ve always liked that name and I wanted her to always know that no matter what, Daddy thought she was beautiful.  And she was, maybe not physically, but inside, where the soul lives.  She had the brightest eyes of anyone I’ve ever known.
       
From the beginning she was Daddy’s girl.  Before she could even speak, she would try and reach out for me even when her Mother was holding her.  And as she became more and more mobile, she rolled instead of crawled, and more communicative, we bonded even more.
          
Does anyone know the true test of strength?  It’s not how much you can lift and carry, or even how “tough” you are mentally or how able to withstand pain.  Its being dealt a losing hand and never complaining, never asking “why me?”  That was my Sabrina.  She was the strongest person I know.
         
Since she was Daddy’s girl we shared many of the same interests.  She, for example, loved to read sci-fi.  I asked her why once and she said it was a way to escape, if people could imagine travelling to the stars at faster than light speed, maybe they could imagine a way for her to walk without her arm and leg braces.  Another thing  we shared was our love for die cast cars, particularly Hot Wheels.  She displayed a few special ones but mainly she liked to open them and play with them on the track in our attic.  This was the mother of all Hot Wheels tracks.  Three jumps, four loops, and an upwards spiral connected to a booster track that finished off with a free run across the top of an old coffee table into a small plastic catch bin at the end.  A successful run was only one that ended with a satisfying “thunk” into the plastic bucket.
              
It was hard for her to collect.  None of the stores had their displays set down to where she could reach.  An on “bad” days, when she had to be pushed around in her wheel chair, she couldn’t reach them at all.  Not a real problem, I would grab the cars off the pegs and hand them to her one at a time.  She would let me know which, if any, she wanted and I would put the rest back.  Most people were pretty understanding about us hogging the space in front of the pegs, but a few *jerks mumbled unkind comments about why don’t these people just stay home or other such nonsense.  A time or two I wanted to ask one of these *jerks to step outside, but Sabrina would just look at me and say, “Never mind Daddy.  It’s who I am.”  So young to be so wise.  So for her tenth birthday I arranged a special surprise at the local TRU.  The manager had been watching Sabrina and I come into his store for several months and understood the problem.  So on her birthday I took her up to the store two hours before it opened and there was John waiting for us.  He let us in and escorted us to the Hot Wheels aisle.  Sabrina’s face lit up like the Fourth of July, for there, starting at one end of the aisle extending all the way to the other was a display of Hot Wheels, both sides of the aisle, none setting more than two feet off the floor.  All of the employees of the store were standing around this special aisle and all shouted in unison, “Happy Birthday, Sabrina!!”  After, Sabrina told me it was her best birthday ever.  What we didn’t know is that it would also be her last.
          
MS is a terrible disease, striking one part of the body then another.  One day you can’t walk, the next you can walk but you can’t use your hands, then maybe you can’t breathe.  The last was Sabrina’s worst problem.  Her lungs hadn’t fully developed and so she was susceptible to breathing disorders, many times we rushed her to the hospital barely breathing.  We knew it would be a matter of time, but as usual, we thought we would have more time than we did.
     
One of the cars Sabrina found on her birthday turned out to be her favorite.  A little pink VW Bug Pearl Driver Series, which, when she opened it had a seven spoke wheel on the left front while all of the others were five spokes.  It also had a tendency to pull to the left, which made it not a particularly good track car.  She said, “Daddy, it’s just like me, its wheels don’t match and it wobbles.”  She named it “Buggy”.
           
So one day I scooped Sabrina out of her chair and carried her upstairs to the attic.  She seemed unusually light to me and she was uncharacteristically quiet.  I strapped her into her “official starters chair” at the head of the track and we started.  I don’t know, maybe the atmospheric conditions were just right, or the moon was in the seventh house or something, but all of the cars just seemed to fly that day.  Sabrina quietly sat n her chair, struggling to place each car at the top of the start ramp.  Finally it was “Buggy’s” turn.  ”OK, Sabrina”, I said, “let her  go!!”  Buggy whipped down the ramp and over  the first ump, landed smooth and clean and seemed to flow through the first loop, around the first turn and into the first booster track.  Shout out of there like a cannon ball and into the double loop.  Then to the last part, the upward spiral.  It hit the last booster, well, I was going to say faster than it ever had, but the truth is it had never made it this far before.  It shot through the upturn and spit out the end.  As it hit the slick surface of the table it went into a flat spin, and somehow, spun straight and true into the plastic bin.  I jumped into the air, fist pumping and shouting, “All right Buggy!!”  I turned to look at Sabrina, she was smiling, but a sad smile.  I bent over to look at her.  “Baby, did you see?  Buggy made it.”  A tear rolled down her cheek.”  I love you Daddy, goodbye.” She whispered.  And she was gone.
     
We buried Sabrina at a private cemetery.  At the ceremony before, I had looked one last time at my beautiful daughter.  Pain free for the first time since I’d known her.  We did not put her leg and arm braces in the casket with her.  She is finally free of those earthly restraints.  Where she is going, she will walk and run and play and be truly free and happy.  Just before we closed the lid I bent over to kiss my baby on the cheek.  I reached into my pocket and placed into her small hands the little pink VW.  Who knows?  Where she is going, after all the running and playing, she might want to ride.
     
Love,
ROCK
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