A lifetime of memories

A New Life

    2:05pm, May 21st, 1992. My parents had been hit in a head-on collision. Aunt Mildred was talking to the doctor and crying. Nurse Shay asked me if I would come with her to get a snack. I was so lost, nobody was telling me anything but I knew something big happened, Aunt Mildred never cried. As I walked beside nurse Shay with her hands wrapped around my tiny hand, my stomach fell to the floor.
    Aunt Mildred was still crying as we came back with our snack. She looked up from the plastic vinyl hospital chair, and reached out for me gently. She nodded a thank you to nurse Shay and pulled me up onto her lap.
    Tears uninterruptedly spilling to the floor as I scream and thrashed myself free. It couldn't be. Mom and dad weren't gone. They couldn't be. Mom just went to the store with dad to get the stuff for her rhubarb crisp. She said they would be right back.
     I rushed to the operating door just as Aunt Mildred swooped me up in her arms. We sat down, she just held me tight and let me cry. I could hear her humming as she rocked back and forth. When my tears ran dry she pulled away from me and said it was time to go. My face shown tear streaked and my eyes swollen, as I wretchedly pulled myself towards the rusty Ford F-150.