Chain reaction: C-4 sever, wreck #3

July 7, 2021  

Prompt: chain reaction 

~*~

Anxiety.  Often the end result of a chain reaction. Triggers, sometimes unconscious, cause dominoes, until I wonder, How the fuck did I get here? Why do I feel this way? 

It's like bouncing around in a hall of mirrors, or in a structure surrounded by water which reflects off itself reaching into an ocean of lunacy. 

The third bad wreck. I've written about it numerous times. I think about it almost daily. My husband, John, and I regularly mention it, amazed how Mom and Dad continued to thrive afterward.

I would say it was the worst of the three bad wrecks. 

But, the first bad wreck, when Dad was in a coma and had Jesus come and tell him to wake up. Seems about as close to death as one can be. That was before he and Mom started the family.

And, the second bad wreck, when Mom was unable to recall our, her children's, names; unable to properly care for herself, even though she was in her thirties; and had to endure multiple rounds of shock treatments, in the 1960s. Seems about as close to lost in a house of mirrors as one can be.

July 5, 1983

I stand in the industrial kitchen at the long, shiny, steel counter that is held up by steel legs and has a steel shelf underneath where giant steel pots and pans and bowls are kept. On a big wooden cutting board, I am cutting vegetables fresh from the garden. Joe stands across from me, doing the same. We both work in Food Services, in The Way Corps, at the Way College in Rome City, Indiana.

"Something is really wrong," I say to Joe.

"What do you mean?" he asks.

"I don't know. Just something feels wrong. I've felt it all morning."

"Have you spoken in tongues about it?" he asks.

"Yes. All morning," I reply.

Speaking in tongues is perfect prayer. It is the spirit praying for whatever the need may be, since as humans we can't begin to conceive of the multitude of needs on any given day in any given moment.

A few hours later I am summoned to the head office where leadership informs me, "Your brother called. He needs you to call him right away. Your father has been in a wreck."

I call Ted and he tells me.

"It's serious. Dad's paralyzed from the neck down. Doctors say it's a C-4 sever. He's at Baptist Hospital in Winston." 

I don't leave Indiana right away. Instead, I tell the leadership what has happened. The whole campus lifts Dad and the family in prayer. I take a walk around the hill. There are small, empty alcoves in the sides of the hill for stations of the cross that, I think, once housed statues. Remnants of the previous residents of the property, the Sisters of the Order of the Precious Blood, a Roman Catholic order of nuns. 

But The Way isn't Roman Catholic and teaches that Mary worship is idolatry and that so-called saints which people pray to are false or, at worst, devil spirits, and that praying to them opens the door for devil spirit possession. I am a Way believer, so I know not to pray to these idols. But I do think about what I've heard of the Sisters that once lived here and how this property offered healing with its mineral springs, which are no longer used. 

God...

Jesus didn't go to Lazarus right away.

He waited three days. 

I don't know what to do.

Should I wait?

Should I go?

I choose to wait. A couple days later my brother calls and says I should come home. So I go, fully prepared to heal Daddy. 

Jesus made the lame to walk. I can do the same, as long as I believe. Believing is the key. Dad will have to believe too. I know the devil did this to Daddy, to keep Daddy from the accuracy of the Word. The devil is always after the Word; his mission is to steal, kill, and destroy. 

Before I was relocated in May to the Indiana Campus, Dad had come to visit me for Parent's Weekend in April at The Way College in Emporia, Kansas. I was embarrassed when Dad wore his plaid golf pants to a meeting, the meeting where he signed up for the Power for Abundant Living Class. But it was fun when Dad and I went dancing together at a local pub. 

I had no idea that's the last time I would see Dad dance... 

Or wear the plaid golf pants...

I would say it was the worst of the three bad wrecks.

~*~