Mercy

Michelle was incoherent and discombobulated. I could hear Ella screaming in the background. What I gleaned from her choppy Mandarin was "Something has happened...tell your husband to come home... car came out...I couldn't get there in time..." When I put it together, I just started yelling down the phone, "Greyson or Ella? Greyson or Ella?" I hung up on her, called Roque and said, "Roq, you have to go home, Ella's been hit by a car." I grabbed my stuff, and bolted out of my office.

As I sat on the train on my way home, I thought of my friend, Cherie, who had to fly from Vancouver to Singapore after she found out over the phone that her father had suddenly passed away. She told me she cried all 17 hours home. The passengers on my train must have wondered what had happened to me. I was a sniffling, blubbering wreck. I looked at pictures of Ella on my phone. During the pockets of service in between stations, I texted as many people as I could, begging for prayer. I felt like every cell of soul was propelling forward in mad velocity towards my daughter, but my body couldn't reach her.

When I finally made it to the ER, I walked into the room where I finally laid eyes on my baby girl. She was sitting by Roque playing with his iPhone. Her right ankle was a little swollen, and she was scratched up here and there. But she was whole. They examined her, and found bruises around her knees and on her torso. They took x-rays of her ankle and confirmed she had no fractures or broken bones. Just a contusion. She was able to walk gingerly for the doctor but was clearly tender in some of the places they probed and pushed.

A woman I didn't recognize sat in a chair in the corner of the room. I asked her who she was, and she replied, "I was driving the car." I couldn't muster much to say to her past the lump in my throat. She followed us quietly as we walked from radiology to the examining room, she watched as they took the x-rays, then trailed back to the examining room. She left at one point to move her car, and then she returned to sit in the waiting room. I knew she was sorry. She was backing out of her driveway. My kids were playing on the sidewalk, running up and down the block as they always do. She said to me, "I saw your son, but I didn't see your daughter. I am so sorry" I couldn't tell her it was okay. I couldn't look my nanny in the eye. The obvious question thundered in my head, "Where were you?"

As my wise husband put it today, everyone could have done something more, but bottom line: this was an accident. I have been alone with the kids when they've run up and down that same block and I have let them run 10 feet ahead of me. I've backed out of my driveway many a time and forgotten to look both ways for kids or people walking by. It could have happened to the best of us. But we've been granted a reprieve. We now have new eyes, and renewed vigilance toward the precious ones that rely on us so unbearably much.

It was a terrifying day, but it is a great day. My daughter is sleeping in her room, and no where else tonight. Things could have played out very differently. I saw God's hand of mercy extended and we were rescued. Ella Joy is not even two years old, and she has already had me in the ER twice; once when I went into pre-term labor, and now this. Even for a lifetime, that is too many.