by Shey Stahl
“The wing broke apart,” Justin’s voice remained distant as he stared at the wall, “there was nothing keeping his head from hitting the wall when he landed on it.”
“What about the roll bars?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense how it happened. With the way it landed on the side, I can only assume they did nothing for him. But then again, he shouldn’t have been able to move that much for that to happen. It was the roll bars then...?” Justin didn’t look at me but he seemed to be asking a question and confused.
There were a few moments of silence before Justin looked at me again. “Did you hear we’re going to be grandparents?”
I groaned. I didn’t like that word. “Don’t remind me. I already feel old.”
I may harbor ill feelings about getting old, but that had nothing to do with Lily having a baby. I was excited for them but it was hard to show excitement about new life when something so tragic had just happened.
Its times like this that you look at your life and wonder what you could have done differently. The fact of the matter was that people die. It happens and there’s nothing you, or anybody else, can do about it.
Sometimes the red flag is waved.
16. Impact Failure – Sway
Impact Failure – A type of valve damage that occurs when the valve seats to hard or hits the piston. It can occur due to a broken timing chains, faulty keeper installation, or operating the engine at excessive rpm.
When I was finally alone, Nancy was with Emma and Alley, and I could breathe...but then again, I couldn’t breathe.
My head fell back against the wall in the bathroom. I tried to count the holes in the ceiling as a comfort but they blurred from my tears and followed with sobs. My throat constricted again, the emotion surfaced.
I cried. I let myself cry alone where I wouldn’t be forced to talk or be comforted. Sometimes, to deal with a loss, it’s better to be alone. It’s better to be in a place where you don’t feel the need to apologize or care that you’re crying like a lunatic or blubbering so badly you can’t breathe.
I kept thinking, between blubbering like a lunatic, that Jimi’s memory seemed so hazy now.
It was an empty seat at the dinner table. It was a distant photograph that seemed as if it was taken years ago when it was only last week. Why was it that as soon as someone is gone, that when you think about them, they feel so far away?
Deciding I didn’t need to wallow forever, I needed to be there for our family, I got up.
When I splashed water on my face, I heard someone talking in the hall.
“I feel bad for her. They’ve been through so much over the years with the loss of her parents and now his dad…I can’t imagine.”
Feel bad for me?
Why would someone feel bad for me? Feel bad for Nancy. Feel bad for their children who lost their father. Feel bad for Jameson’s children who have to watch their dad endure such crushing physical and emotional pain. Don’t feel bad for me.
I intended to leave the bathroom but I didn’t. Instead I sat there looking through a magazine and waited for whoever it was outside.
Flipping through the magazine, I tried anything to get my mind from thinking all the bad. And there, next to an ad for condoms, was a picture of Jameson standing in a cloud of smoke, his fingers curled through the holes in a chain link fence, his eyes on the camera. I was drawn to the photo just like I was to the magic behind his eyes. The same captivation his presence held, that photograph held.
I blinked at the memory, like an old legend, his impact on me, on the world, would forever be with us.
I stared at the photograph as if it held the answer, empty and weightless, it did nothing but make me cry harder.
I wanted him here to comfort me. I wanted to hear him whisper “honey” in my ear with the slow raspy tenor he had with teasing words and playful touches. With the magazine pressed to my chest, I cried. Wearing pajamas on the floor of a hospital bathroom trying to count tiles, I cried.
You can’t cry forever. Believe me, after the death of my own father, I would know.
Eventually your body will give in and you fall asleep. Those of us who have children may disagree with that statement but at some point, they do go to sleep. When they wake up in the morning and realize they had been crying, they start again, and you wonder if they had ever stopped. My point was, eventually your body knows when enough is enough.
My mind drifted to the families of those lost in the plane crash two years ago. We’re their families asking themselves these same questions?
And then I was asking myself questions. I thought of the practical stuff. What happens in real life?
What do I tell his sponsors? What if he does die? What happens to his sprint car team? What happens to the Cup team with Jimi gone? Would his sponsors pull out of their agreement if he was in the hospital too long? What if he could never race again? What if he didn’t remember me? Would our medical insurance cover this? Could we afford this if Jameson wasn’t racing? What about the kids? Would they be okay? Should I call the school and tell them Casten needs some time off? What should we do about a hotel room? Should I get everyone food? And the media, what do I tell them? They would want answers.
His fans, would they stand by him? Would they help him through this?
Everything, every thought I could possibly wonder about was present. I don’t know if it was my minds way of dealing with the stress but I thought about all that. I had no answers though.
I eventually removed myself from the bathroom to sit in the hall outside the intensive care unit. I knew Jameson wasn’t in there but that’s where I was when the doctor found me before so I thought maybe he would know where to look when he needed me again.
Axel was there by himself with his head bent forward resting on his arms that were held up by his knees, still wearing his racing suit. I watched him closely. His eyes met my gaze evenly. His expression was calm but the pain in his eyes was unconcealed.
A child’s innocence provides them with a security of not knowing. They can only comprehend so much about death and reality before their innocence takes over. They would never truly understand the magnitude at their young age.
When my mom died, I had that security of not understanding. Everything was still a fairytale for me.
When Charlie died, that security wasn’t there any longer and I was forced to deal with it as an adult. I wouldn’t say I dealt with it real well but I did eat a lot of ice cream and that was comforting. All I could say was at least I was dealing with the shit and didn’t hole myself in my room. It definitely sounded appealing but I didn’t.
Eventually, with the distraction of a new baby, Axel, Jameson and I were able to slowly recover from Charlie dying.
With Jimi, this wouldn’t be as easy. For one, my support system, my other half, was lying in a hospital bed hanging onto his life by machines. And two, I think in a sense, I prepared myself to a certain extent that Charlie was dying. With Jimi, the detonation was instant.
When the doctor spoke the words, “He’s gone.” I silently begged him to take back his words. This couldn’t happen. Not to our family. Not to a family that has had to overcome tragedy so often.
When the sun began to rise that morning in Iowa, I sat in the lobby next to the coffee stand watching the snow fall. Emotionally, I was completely drained. I wanted to shut down and sleep, pretending this wasn’t happening, but it was. I had my kids, my husband and our entire family to think of right now. Shutting down wasn’t an option.
Nancy was outside sitting on a bench by herself, watching. If you looked close enough, you could see her lips moving as if she was either praying or talking to Jimi. Either way, I decided not to watch as I felt she needed this time alone.
They wouldn’t let us up to the fifth floor where the Neuro-ICU was. Instead, we had to stay in the Intensive Care waiting area they had until Jameson was stable enough to be removed from the ICU.
I had arrived around three in the
morning on Thursday. By now, it was nine on Friday morning and no one had left the waiting room, No one.
Nancy briefly stepped out with Spencer to discuss arrangements for Jimi and she of course got to see him. She still hadn’t cried that we knew of and even after she saw him in the morgue, she still didn’t cry.
I did. I found my place on that bathroom floor again and my magazine, and cried. Matter of fact, I still had that magazine and the picture of my husband next to the condom ad.
Mostly everyone had cried including my kids, all aside from Nancy. This also wasn’t something you cried and it was suddenly over. It was a blow that kept coming.
With the arrival of morning, more family and friends had arrived. Andrea was now here with Lucas and Macy. Ami, Lily, Kyle, Mason...pretty much our entire family and extended family of our sprint car and Cup teams.
We all waited.
Casten and Axel left for an hour and when they came back, I realized just how special my boys were. These kids had just lost their grandfather hours ago, their father was being kept alive by machines, but they found time to bring everyone food.
They stopped off at a nearby diner and picked up an assortment of food for everyone and coffee for me and Tommy.
Shortly after ten, Dr. Howe returned for me to sign a form on our medical insurance and authorize further treatment on Jameson.
“Any change?”
“He’s stable but still listed in critical condition.” Dr. Howe said. “He had two more seizures and I had to go in and control some of the continued bleeding around his brain due to swelling. He’s lost a lot of blood so we had to give him a blood transfusion.”
Reaching for my magazine, holding it close, Arie reached for me when I swayed but the gravity of him being here, though it was a fucking magazine I was holding, rooted me here.
“Can I see him yet?” My voice trembled with the shaking of my body. Flashes of Jameson healthy and happy before he left the other day caused me to start crying. “Please?” I begged. “I just need to see him. I won’t go inside the room. I just need...to see. I’m begging you; all I need is a peak.”
It was if I had this false pretense that if I saw him, I would feel better about it.
The doctor paused, his eyes scanning the twenty some people gathered in the room. Our faces all the same detached frozen gaze.
He looked back at me seeing my pain, feeling my pain. “I can let you back there for a minute, but only you.”
Everyone seemed to understand, so I went alone. I also didn’t want to kids seeing him like this. I had no idea what he looked like right now but I knew I didn’t want our children to have a memory of him like this if it was our last one.
Outside the doctor the doctor stopped me. The room he was in was all glass so I could see him in there, lying in the bed but it didn’t look like him at all.
I just kept telling myself, repeated actually. “Keep it together.”
The doctor touched my arm, “I want you to be prepared. He doesn’t look good. His condition isn’t good but don’t get discouraged. I’ve seen people pull through a thing like this before. He’s in the best care around.”
“Thank you.” I whispered as my eyes focused on Jameson’s body through the glass.
The doctor pressed a button to the left of the door that made a beep and then another. It slide open after that and we walked inside as it closed behind us. I wanted to fall to my knees. I wanted to breathe but couldn’t. My heart pounded and my breathing seized. I couldn’t put one foot in front of the other. Images flashed of Jimi and Nancy and the pain Nancy felt. The pain we all felt. Tears surfaced but didn’t fall, the lump in my throat rose with each second that I thought this would be the last time I saw him. Would this be my last memory of him?
That could be us. I could lose him. I knew that this was possible each time he got into a race car. I always knew that from the very beginning but it didn’t make the thoughts any easier.
You can prepare yourself all you want but when you see it happen; nothing helps.
The room was dim, a large screen on the wall showed all his head and spine scans and it appeared to be chest x-rays as well. Machines, devices and electronics were scattered throughout the room, beeping, vibrating and humming. Strangely I felt a touch of relief knowing these machines were keeping him alive.
A low whoosh sound peaked and then flattened before beginning again.
When my eyes finally focused on my husband, his head was wrapped in gauze and bandages; his wild hair peaked through on the right side. There was a tube down his throat that was taped to his lips. His eyes where completely purple and black, and swollen shut. There were tubes and wires everywhere.
He was covered from the neck down in a thick white blanket. There was another tube under his arm, connected to a machine filled with fluid. When my eyes focused once again on his face, I noticed a small tube attached the side of his head under the bandages. It was hooked-up to a monitor above him, gauging the pressure in his brain along with additional wires connected under the blanket somewhere. More tubes were surrounding his chest and the breathing tube.
He didn’t look like my Jameson, he was lifeless. So pale...so still.
“Will he wake up?”
“Slowly, when we feel his condition has improved, we ease him off the anesthesia but it has to be slow. After that, we remove the ventilator and let him breathe on his own.”
I think there’s times when your brain can’t fully absorb what happening. It’s almost like it’s protecting you from damage. It’s kind of like breaking your leg and still being able to walk on it. Your body knows there’s damage but your brain knows that you could be in trouble. The next day, you can hardly move with excruciating pain from the broken leg but for those few hours directly following the blow, you’re mobile. It’s your brain protecting you. When tragedy happens, so much goes through your brain it’s hard to focus on anything. Look at me. I was carrying around a magazine.
The doctor stepped beside me after making some notes and looked down at me.
“Talk to him,” he encouraged. “...he needs to hear your voice.”
My eyes closed slowly. Maybe if I blinked, it wouldn’t be real, didn’t work.
“He’s in a medically induced coma. How can he hear me?”
“He can hear you.” He assured me and stepped out leaving us alone for the first time. “I honestly believe that’s the way to recover from something like this. He needs to hear you. He needs to feel your touch and know he has you with him.”
I didn’t say anything but stared at Jameson again as tears streamed down my face.
How could Nancy be so brave?
My vision was bleary from my tears. I swept the back of my hand over my cheeks.
I wanted to touch him, feel his skin against mine but he looked so fragile I didn’t want to risk it. When I could see again, I followed the outline of his arm up his shoulder to his face again. The curve of his lips reminded me of the way he kissed me goodbye before he left. I remembered what his green eyes looked like when he whispered he loved me and then kissed me once again before he left.
Those were the last memories I had of him.
I couldn’t imagine my life without him. He was my world but then I thought, at least you have this time with him. Nancy didn’t get to see Jimi at all, not until he was gone. Jameson was alive. I needed to be thankful for that right now. I understood that much.
My emotions wavered back and forth between being grateful to fearing the worst.
After another few minutes the doctor came back inside. “Mrs. Riley, I’m sorry but I can only have you in here for a few minutes. Visitors aren’t allowed on this floor.” His voice was full of regret. I knew he had no choice.
I ran my hands over my heated face, flushed with exhaustion and emotions.
“I understand.” I nodded taking another long glance at Jameson.
The doctor smiled half-heartedly. “I would let you stay if it were up to me.”
“I know.”
I hesitated when I got up, unsure if I could touch him or not so I looked back at the doctor.
His head nodded once with a soft smile. “If you want to kiss him, go ahead. Just be mindful of the tubes.”
I settled on lightly kissing his cheek before whispering to him. “I love you. Please come back to me.”
I wouldn’t let anything take away what he was to me as it would never change. He once asked me to stay some twenty years ago and now, here I was, begging him to stay with me.
Jimi used to tell us your life was all about the laps within the race. Some you lead, some you hang back and watch, others your lapped traffic. Then there are the flying laps when life flies and you’ve made the most ground and accomplished what you set out to do. And then one day the race is over, your laps are done. You’re left with the memories of the laps you led, as they were what matter most in setting time.
No amount of laps would be enough for me though, not when it came to Jameson.
I wanted forever. Afraid to love him for so many years, I was more afraid of the loss.
17. Collected – Sway
Collected – When a car is caught in an incident that they did not cause. If a car spins and is struck by a second car to a stop, the second car is said to be collected.
Everyone from the fans waiting in the lobby to the pressing media pushing their way past security, wanted to know what happened and why?
The biggest question was with a nearly five million dollar contract racing in the Cup series, why was Jameson allowed to race sprint cars?
When tragedy hits the racing community, it shakes them to their very core. No one is left unaffected in the wake which spreads past the confines of concrete walls and cheering fans. It’s a tragedy that can rip you apart and leave you wondering if there will be any pieces left.
We understood the feeling and knew what this meant.
The news hit the media instantly, our phones rang non-stop. The hours and days went by slowly as I ignored my phone. Anyone I wanted to talk to was here already.