From Broken to Beautifully Broken

Yellowbrick Road

The year was 1986 and my parents, my 6 month old sister and I had just moved into our new house. My father had built our house from the ground up. There were not many houses around us at the time. We were one of the first to build. Years later the development would become quite a coveted area. It had a huge backyard with a deck and hot tub. It had an in-ground pool and the best part- my own room. I was four years old and none of this mattered to me. What mattered was my best friend lived only a few houses away. She really was my best friend all the way through high school and it all started when we were in pre-school. We went to the same private school together. A catholic school about 10 minutes from our houses. It's important to know that every single road to get to this school was a side street. There was only one "main" road that was pretty busy on the way to that school. Most days my mom and Layla's mom would take turns taking us to school. We even had a friend who lived a few blocks down on Yellow Brick Road to be exact. Her mom was a part of the car pool as well. Between the three of them, my mom rarely had to take my little sister out in the cold winter months. Which, as a mother myself now, is a huge score. Bundling a newborn up for a 10 minute drive in the winter is on the bottom of my list of things I want to do. On this particular day, Layla's mother was on pick up duty. She would swing past my house and then down a couple blocks to pick up our other little friend. Then we would head off to school. Katie (my friend's mother) drove a brand new Volvo. It was literally the safest car you could buy at the time. I'm not even being dramatic. It ACTUALLY was. On the way to school we would always play I spy games. Those 10 minutes getting to school flew by! Around 8am, Katie pulled in my driveway and I ran to the car. Layla was behind her mom in the back seat so I ran to the other side. Before I could even buckle my seatbelt Layla shouted " I spy something blue!" We were already playing our game as Katie drove off to pick up the third kiddo on Yellowbrick Road . I couldn't find anything blue for the life of me. I scooted into the middle of the back seat to have a look out of the windshield. This is all I can remember from that day. My next memory of that day isn't actually a memory. It's a smell. The smell of iodine. Whenever I retell this story or think about it, this smell comes to my mind. Whenever someone uses iodine on me or around me I get an awful feeling. A feeling associated with this day in 1986 on Yellowbrick Road.

I know that in your later years of life it's very hard to remember things that happened at 4 years old. In fact up until 3 years old it's been scientifically proven that most adults don't have any real memories from those first three years. You may think you remember things, but most times that memory is actually a story you've heard your mom tell before or a photograph that you saw from that day. You mistake those for the actual memory when in reality you don't usually remember much from that young of an age. I can tell you this. I remember some things from the days that followed. I have a blurry memory of a man with a long beard picking me up out of the car. I remember my uncle giving me a stuffed horse that seemed enormous at the time. I remember being pushed in a wheelchair down a hall. I remember the smell of iodine. I remember the sound of a woman's voice. I remember a box of handmade cards being dropped off at my house that all of my classmates had made for me. My teacher dropped them off and even stayed to visit me. I remember the feel of the stitches on my face. But what I remember most is the day my grandmother convinced me to look at myself in the mirror.

The rest of the story has been pieced together for me by my parents and family.

I spy something blue. To this day when my kids want to play I spy, I get a subconscious feeling of dread. As if something bad is about to happen. I never knew why I had that nagging feeling until I forced myself to recall as much of that day's events as I could. As I was looking for something blue, Katie was driving down Yellowbrick Road. A man driving a postal truck had run a stop sign and essentially almost killed me. This wasn't your regular mailman. This was a postal truck that delivers the bins of mail to individual post offices. He was running late so he decided to cut through some side streets to make up time. Not only did he run the stop sign, but he ran the stop sign at 60 miles per hour. The point of impact? Exactly where I was sitting. The volvo collapsed like an accordion and took me down with it.