Comments are closed on this post.
Thursday evening, at about 4:45, I held a young woman's hand while she bled out onto the roadside. A woman who had crossed over onto oncoming traffic and was struck by our truck.
Here is the article in our local newspaper: Motorcyclist Killed in Head-on Hwy 173 Crash. An objective piece that gives the facts. What it doesn't say is how hard me and two kindhearted drivers tried to save her. It doesn't tell you how we pounded her chest with compressions, how we prayed over her, how we begged her to live. It doesn't tell you how her pulse was strong in the beginning, and her eyes flickered every time I yelled at her "Kaleena, fight! You can do this. FIGHT." Or how when we finally pulled off her helmet under the directions of the 911 operator, her brains spilled out onto the cold ground. It doesn't say how she never really had a chance, even though at the time, we thought she did. It doesn't tell you how we foolishly clung onto so much hope.
The article, in its mere 171 words, doesn't tell you that my daughter sat on a rock nearby as this was happening, huddled around her little brother, keeping his head under a blanket so he wouldn't see. It doesn't tell you about the good samaritan who directed traffic for two hours straight and kept bringing us bottles of water. It doesn't tell you about the dozen other motorcyclists who were riding alongside Kaleena--beautiful woman with even more beautiful souls, who clung to her as she took her dying breaths and clung to each other when she died, who set aside their own remorse to hug me and Clint and the kids over and over again, taking my face into their hands and saying "It's not your fault. It's not your fault." Even though there were a dozen selfish decisions I made that led to us being in that exact place at that exact time. It doesn't tell you that my family had to sit in the desert with Kaleena's broken body for over four hours. It doesn't tell you that my 17 year old daughter is now deathly afraid to drive. Or that I can't see a motorcyclist on the road now without losing my breath.
Kaleena was a young woman who simply made a mistake. One small miscalculation cost her her life. Did you know that, for every casualty that happens on the roads, there's someone on the other end of it? There's the person whose life was cut short, and there's the person who took it. It seems so obvious, but I never knew that. I never fucking knew.
The article doesn't tell you, as it gives its list of facts, that in one moment, everything changes. Everything. Changes.
"Kindness" - The last thing posted on Kaleena's blog.
