The Text

Tonight I thought my life might be over.  It was a brief moment in time.  I am trying not to be a drama queen but Henry is my reason for going on and living with the excruciating pain of losing Hayley.  I had just said to Scott, Henry is out, I am owning the fact we are not going anywhere and getting my pjs on.  I sat back down at 5:34 with my penguin jammies on.  I looked at my text and Verizon had text me at 5:28 to tell me that Henry’s phone had called 911.  I looked at Scott and asked him to track Henry’s phone.  It was in Redmond and not moving.  His phone went right to voicemail.  He had been in an accident.  I was upstairs getting dressed before Scott even talked to Henry.  I planned to go to exactly where his phone was.  I told myself he was okay because he had dialed 911.  The voice said well someone else may have used his phone to call because he couldn’t.  I saw the look on Scott’s face when he got Henry on the phone, I was already getting my shoes on and putting Finn in the kennel, turn the oven off and waiting for Scott in the car.  I had backed down to get it pointing heading out taking out one of the garbage cans Henry had not brought up when I asked.  So when Scott said he would drive I quickly relinquished the wheel.  On the way there Scott admitted that he had been imagining something happening to Henry because of the Hayley anniversaries looming.  Like it was time for something else bad to happen.  I felt less alone.  I was not the only one constantly worrying about Henry.  Henry called me, where are you mom?  He sounded hoarse and really upset.  I calming told him we were on our way.  I text him along the way telling him how close we were.  When we got to the parking lot I saw his wonderful group of friends standing to the side, Henry was with a police officer.  He immediately headed my way and we met in the middle.  He actually hugged me and let me hold him as long as I needed.  I searched his face and body for injuries, his face looked red.  This was when he told me that he had been punched in the face.  I went in for another hug to hide the horror on my face.  He is so much taller than me and it felt like I was the kid being hugged by a parent.

I was ready to destroy something.  I wanted to leave, hunt down that car and do serious damage to the man that hurt my baby.  Shortly after we got there we were told that the carjacker had caused a major multiple car crash and was in custody.  They needed Henry to go ID the man. I asked for one of us to go with.  I nominated Scott knowing full well I would be out of that police car and kicking that guy in the nuts before any officer could stop me.  Although they did put Scott in the back of the police car so I would not have had the chance with the whole doors lock from the outside thing.

Henry was calm and mature.  The police were surprised he was only 16.  I thanked the 19 year old that had followed the car shortly called the information in to police and went back to be with Henry.  He was the only one.  Others drove by Henry in the intersection screaming for help.  What kind of adults do that?  Evidently several.  I am so pissed.

The officer in charge was a young woman.  She had a pony tail like Hayley.  I imagine this is what Hayley would have looked like in her uniform and how kind she also would have been as an officer.

With the dates looming, how could we have something else crappy happen?  We are already facing my unemployment ending and taking a low paying part time job.  Now we have to buy another car with deductibles and you know the insurance company will hose us on the amount even though we have had the car 8 weeks.  It is never ending.  My life has been one challenge after another.  Nothing phases me now because nothing could be worse than what we faced this month a year ago.  But the fact that someone tried to hurt my baby and all of the “what could have happen”, I am just so done.

I am in bed, xanax on board, dogs all in the room listening to the fireworks going off.  Not one of our 4 dogs seem to care about fireworks.  At least that is a blessing.  I have a 16 year old shaken up, it could be worse if I had four dogs freaking out about fireworks.  So there that is as close to glass half full I am going to get.

I am ready for good things to happen.  Maybe I won’t recognize them.  Maybe I won’t smile, but for f&%k sake give me a damn break.