Oct. 23, 2011 Westbound Sand Canyon Exit 1552 hours THE GAME CHANGER Many of you have never heard the story of Bret’s and my motorcycle accident, so in the wake of this game changer happening exactly one year ago, I thought I would share the story with you.Let's see if I can do this. Bret's brother had been diagnosed with a rare blood disease and nearly died, and we had been trying and trying to go and visit him for several weeks between September and October of 2011. But he banished us from coming, so I finally got him to agree to meet us in Lone Pine, and go to Mt. Whitney with us and his family. We rode our motorcycles, and met them, as we have been riding with his brother, Doug, his wife, Anna, and their kids, Douglas and Renee, for years. Bret and I had also had a love affair with that Honda 1800 VTX for the last nearly eight years. We crossed the country and saw America and had traveled to many, many beautiful places together. It was like a shot in the arm to our marriage. Anyway, we said good-bye to them on October 23, about noon, and they went back to Pahrump, Nevada, and we headed back to Tehachapi. About five miles away from home, there was an accident on the side of the road, to our right. We were heading westbound on 58. My husband saw the traffic slow for the highway patrolman and the tow truck, so he braked and slowed down to 55 mph. But all of a sudden, the lady in front of us slammed on her brakes hard, so he slammed on the hand brake, along with the foot brake. This caused our brakes to lock up, and after the bike seemed to hit an invisible wall, it just slammed down to the ground into the left. lane, but we never hit the lady who stopped in front of us, because of Bret’s mad driving skills. Sometimes I wonder if he took the big hit for me, because he hung onto the bike for so long. All of a sudden, we were under it sliding, then I was rolling away in one direction, and he was rolling the opposite way of me into the median. As I was careening away from Bret, I saw him tumbling over and over, I took in the Honda lying on the side of the road, I noticed the lady pull over her blue car and run down to get the highway patrolman, I felt my bloody hands when I held them up to my face, and then I finally quit rolling. I yelled out Bret’s name, but didn't respond. So somehow, I stood straight up and walked over to him, falling on my knees. I kissed him and told him I loved him and begged him not to die on me, and he told me he was alive, but he couldn't move, and he was in excrutiating pain. So I stayed with him and talked to him, and then I thought I should call my daughter. About that time, the highway patrol man ran over, checked me, made me lay down, and started working with Bret. So I handed my phone to the lady that caused the accident, and then I couldn’t breathe, and everything became a blur. Next thing I knew, the ambulance, the firetruck, and the helicopter, and we were whisked away to KMC. That night in the emergency room, at least three people died all around us from some major car, bike accidents and fights. But God spared our lives. I had road rash only, and Bret ended up with a shattered ankle and thumb. He was in the orthopedic the next day, had the thumb surgery Monday, and the ankle surgery on the Thursday after the accident. We felt very blessed that God had the help there for us so quickly and the surgery was done by some very well-respected doctors. He ended up with seven screws in his right ankle and eight screws in his right thumb. Things had been going on okay for the three weeks after the accident, except for Bret had been in suchterrible pain, and I had been just aching for him. We had been to see his doctors over a half dozen times, and I was on the phone with them often about his pain. But he had a very good diagnosis for a full recovery, although not without another possible surgery, even down to a slight risk of amputation. He was very worried about that fact, as he watched his father go through a leg amputation, so three days before he passed away, he was talking to his doctor about the fairly new full-ankle replacement. Then, on Saturday, November 12, I woke up with a bad dream. It was a night that Bret was extremely cold, and I got out of bed to cover him up and get him warm. When he went back to sleep, I came out and did some paperwork and laundry, because the dream I had had was that he had died in the hospital, instead of surviving our accident. I was supposed to go to LAX with my friend, Tina (who had been visiting with us for the last week), to pick up her daughter, Angela, who was returning from a five month Azuza Pacific missions trip to China. I told my daughter, Deanna, that morning that I just didn't feel like I was supposed to go with Tina to LAX, but I didn't want her to go alone, so my daughter went with her on her day off. She and Angela grew up together and are like sisters. So I got to stay home with Bret. They left at 10:15, and I went in to check on him, and we just cuddled and talked, and he slept until around 11:15. Then I went in, and he wanted to get up, so I put some Bendryl cream on his hives caused by pain meds and gave him a Benydryl allergy pill. Next, I got him dressed and wheeled him into the living room to sit in his easy chair. He had only been sitting for a minute, and he started complaining of dizziness and trouble breathing. He asked for a cool wash cloth, and I told him I wanted to call 911. He asked me to wait, and then a couple of minutes later he asked me to call. The man on the phone thought Bret was having a heart attack, so he asked me to give him an aspirin and clear a path for the EMT’s. They got to our house within fifteen minutes, and everything was a whirl. Before they took Bret off the chair, I told him how glad I was that I married him and how much I loved him. He said not to give up on him yet, because he was still breathing. When they were wheeling him out, we both kissed again, said our I love yous, and the last thing I saw was his strong right hand holding up the traditional "I love you" deaf sign that we did every morning to each other when we left for work. I yelled back that I loved him, told him I would be there soon, and gave him the sign, too. Before the ambulance took off, the EMT came back and yelled to me that they were taking to Tehachapi Hospital instead of the Bakersfield Heart Hospital. My heart sank in my chest because I knew that meant he was in bad shape. That was the last time I saw my beautiful husband alive, AND that moment of him on the gurney in the doorway, holding up “I love you” with his hand is forever freeze-framed in my brain. When I arrived at the hospital, I had close friends waiting, but no one knew anything. Finally, they let us back into a waiting room, and the nurse came in and told me that as soon as he got to the hospital, his heart stopped, and the doctor had only been able to keep him alive with a machine, and he was still working on him. She also said that just before his heart stopped, he asked her to tell me how much he loved me. After over an hour, the doctor came in and told me he was gone, and that there was nothing more he could do. He said he believed it was a pulmonary embolism (I guess a large blood clot) that resulted from his surgeries (Which I later found out he had two of them, one in each lung, from the coroner’s report.). I know God has our day set in stone, and I know His Word is true, but sometimes it is so hard to circle back and trust Him. I am trying to live the truth that I have so often told my friends & family, “Jesus is enough,” but mostly, I am failing miserably. These days, trusting my Heavenly Father and my Savior is the only thing that keeps me sane, because like all of us do because we are human, I go to dark places, thinking I could have saved him if I had just understood the symptoms, or if the doctors had given him blood thinners, or if I had gotten him in to see his primary doctor here in Tehachapi. Those “what ifs” don’t fix anything, and I have come to understand, from a very good friend of mine, that you never get “over” the death of a loved one, you just get “through” it, one day at a time, one foot in front of the other, inhaling and exhaling one single breath every few seconds, and asking God over and over again to help you and to be with you and to keep you from going out of your mind. I continue to thank you for your love and prayers and for keeping in touch with me and checking on me every once in a while. All of those personal interactions truly help me make sense of my life, and it is almost like God knows when I really need it, because one of you will just randomly call or text or invite me to dinner or email me or send me a card. So, please know that you are not dredging up hurt for me when you make that contact; I am always going to feel the pain, because no matter how much time passes, Bret is always, always with me, which means you don’t have to feel bad if you mention him or slip and say something or have a fond memory about him. It is something I live with, and you reminding me of him doesn’t change that fact. It honestly helps, because those happy memories and the tears that go along with remembering Bret are like a salve to my soul. In closing, as my grandma used to say, “I love you all a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck, and a hug around the neck (Which probably explains my affinity for giving hugs!!!)…