One Scream

This weekend the kids and I met Shad in the wind tunnel so that he could participate in a 24 hour dirt bike race. He was on a team of guys (6, I think) and they all took turns making an hour long lap, 25 miles. It started at 10 am on Halloween and ended at 9 am today. It was a lot of fun and I will post some pics soon. But I wanted to share something that I experienced there that has gotten me thinking a lot.

As Shad went out on his first lap at about 2 in the afternoon on Halloween, Greg (Shad's brother) and I took the kids up to the first check to watch Shad come through. As we stood there an ambulance headed up the hill with a woman waving her arms for it to follow her. I said something to Greg like, "Uh oh, someone wrecked." I really didn't think a lot about it because it happens. Usually a mild concussion or a broken bone, but nothing really major. Shad came through the check and then the kids and I headed up the hill to the Halloween party that some of the ladies put together for the kids. It was a great party in the howling, cold wind, for sure!

While the kids were drawing on pumpkins I heard something. As soon as I heard it my heart dropped into the pit of my stomach and I immediately looked in the direction that it was coming from. I knew what it was before I even saw the panic stricken woman with tears on her face. It was the most horrible, devastated, gut-wrenching scream I have ever heard. A couple of other ladies heard it and we all wondered together if anyone had heard an update on the guy who had crashed a little earlier. But we didn't need to ask, it was so apparent from the one scream that we all heard and the woman's face that we saw. It is amazing how one sound can trigger so many memories and feelings that you thought were pretty much gone.

I feel so much for that woman who lost her husband of only 2 months on Halloween 2009. I didn't lose my husband, but I have screamed that same scream. It came just after I watched my husband of only 2 months go from standing on the side step of the truck, to barely hanging on, to falling off the step, to feeling the bump as we ran him over, to seeing him rolling down the gravel road behind the truck. That was when I screamed that same horrible, panicked, devastated, gut-wrenching scream. Because for 5 or 10 seconds I thought it. I thought the thing that she knew when she screamed. Thank my Lord God that I only had to think it for a few seconds and not for the rest of my life! I didn't realize it until yesterday how completely scared I was that night. And when I heard her scream, it hit me like a ton of bricks. If only for a few seconds I knew exactly how she was feeling when she screamed.

So as the festivities continued around me, I said a quiet prayer for that woman who screamed. And I have prayed for her many times since. But I have also said many prayers of thanks that God did not take my husband of only 2 months away from me that night 13 years ago. It just amazes me how one sound can stir up so many forgotten feelings. One sound, one scream.