Graduation Crashers

The first thought that ran through my head when the car rammed into the side of our taxi was that I'd have to show up at my daughter's college graduation with coffee stains all over me and my dress. The fact that my precious designer purse on the floor in front of me seemed to be drenched was even more horrifying. Damn, why did I have to get that second cup?

Time seems to pass either too slowly or too quickly when something bad suddenly happens, so I don't know how long it was before I turned to check on the three in the back seat. Probably only a moment. My mother, sitting right behind me, was clearly in pain, rubbing her shoulder and whimpering. My mother-in-law, sitting in the middle, was rubbing the back of her head. My daughter, who had been sitting on the side where the impact occurred, seemed fine, in a wide-eyed, stunned sort of way. She had seen the car coming toward her and was affected less by the crash than the slow motion picture that kept running through her head.

I eventually came to my senses and went to help the three of them out of the car. My daughter, clearly traumatized, called her dad, who came running over to the scene, followed closely by my brother and my son. The guys had chosen to walk; we had left in our taxi only minutes earlier, and had not gotten very far.

Well, in short order, the adorable Virginia EMT's arrived and I was really wishing I didn't look like such a fright, but they took good care of my mother and were very solicitous and I tried really hard to push my fireman fantasies out of my brain so I could focus on the crisis at hand. To make a long story short, I shipped the rest of the crew off in another taxi so they could still have time to snag some decent seats for graduation, and my brother and I rode in the ambulance with my mom, who was less upset about her aching shoulder than the fact they made her ride in a stretcher. She has a few pride issues. Don't we all.

The nice handsome firemen were very sympathetic to our situation -- graduation, remember graduation? -- and managed to get authorization for a visit to the District of Columbia, even though we were in Virginia. So off we went, my mother and my brother heading into the Georgetown Hospital Emergency Room, me sprinting off to the other side of campus. Good thing I wore my flip flops. I got there in time to see my oldest child walk in her graduation processional. The gods of motherhood were with me.

Apparently, the emergency room personnel were as tuned into the graduation issue as the EMT's had been, and raced through their examination and x-rays and paperwork so they could ship my brother and my mother off in a security van in time to see my daughter walk on stage and receive her diploma. The gods of grandmotherhood and unclehood were paying attention as well.

I won't go into the details of how I got a DC cop to order a taxi driver who had been called for another party to take me and my mom and brother back to our hotel, but I will always remember him fondly. I will also remember fondly the look on the face of the other very nice lady trying to grab the very same taxi when I told her, very politely, I thought, it was not her turn.

My brother took my mother back to New York City so that her fractured shoulder and aching right leg can be examined by "real" doctors. My mother-in-law initially claimed her brain seemed fuzzy, which led my husband to conclude that she had not been seriously hurt. She actually does seem as fine as ever. I packed my mother's suitcase for her -- under very close supervision, lest I put the cold cream in the wrong spot or fold her St. John suit incorrectly. The physical injuries had clearly not affected her obsessive need for things to be ordered and the same as they have always been.

I am worried about my mother, not only because she is hurt, but because her physical injuries are, to say the least, inconsistent with her obsessive need for things to be ordered and the same as they have always been. I am also worried about my cupcake order for brunch today; the confirmation page was in my purse, and is badly stained with coffee. My track record hasn't been stellar in the advance purchase department this weekend, and I was counting on the cupcakes for a bit of redemption.