Last night, during my few hours of broken, disturbed sleep, I had a dream. I was sitting on the floor of the bedroom, talking to my father on the phone. He was telling me that time helped most things, and that once Jason and I got into a routine, things would be OK. I don’t think I believed him, so he told me there was someone who wanted to talk to me. The phone switched hands.

“Hello, Gal.”

It was my Grandpa, who never met Jason because he died a few months after we began dating.

“That boy of yours will be OK, he’ll be fine,” he said.

“He will?”

“Aw yeah Gal, he has to be.”

I’ve never been a big believer in miracles, guardian angels, or the lot. I’ve always viewed it as something desperate people say to make themselves feel better. But if there was ever an angel on my shoulder making sure I was safe, he really pulled through for me yesterday.

Jason picked me up from the metro at 5:20.

“How long have you been waiting?” he asked.

“Like 15 minutes,” I said. “It’s no big deal, I got a chance to talk to Mom for awhile.”

“Where are we going?”

“Lowes, home, Jon’s.”

We hit up Lowes in the Kentlands to return some outdoor lights we bought by mistake. We picked up another plant, some painting supplies, and spent way too long trying to figure out the self-checkout machine.

We got in the car at 6. “We’ll have just enough time to go home, change, and leave again to go to Jon’s,” I said.

Jason sighed. “Yeah, looks that way.”

He was in the drivers seat, and we were discussing our days while merging into the HOV lane of I-270; the major vein through Montgomery County.

“Thank God for the HOV lane,” he said, looking at the bumper-to-bumper traffic that filled the three lanes to our right. We pulled into the parking space in front of our house around 6:25. “Let’s just change really quickly,” I said, grabbing the Lowes’ bags from the back of the car.

We had 7 minutes, and neither of us had any idea.

We petted the cats that were meowing by the door for food and attention, walked upstairs, and turned on the Discovery Channel. I went into the bathroom to brush my work-worn hair and wash my makeup off. Jason sat down on the futon and hung out for a second.

“Hey Faith!” He called.

I peaked in the room from the bathroom door.

“Look,” he said. He pointed to Tabby—the “good” cat—who was turned over on her back showing her belly. This would be the last thing of the night he remembered.

“Come on Jay,” I said. “We’ve got to get ready.”

It was 6:31.

He stood up, walked over to the closet, and began to pick out a shirt. He dropped a hanger, and it almost hit my head. “Hey, don’t throw stuff at me,” I said, jokingly. He didn’t reply. About thirty seconds later, it began.

He fell to the floor jerking, as stiff as a board. I screamed from surprise, but responded. I bent down next to his tight body, as his eyes rolled back in his head and spit ran out of his mouth. It felt like hours. I debated in my head if I should call 911. I remembered last time—18 months ago—how they weren’t the nicest to me, and didn’t even take him to the hospital. But when his face and lips turned blue from lack of oxygen, I hesitated no longer.

His jaw was clenched, his neck stiff, his hands in fists, and his arms and legs tense. He wasn’t thrashing about like he did last time, and he didn’t cry out either. It didn’t seem to be quite as bad, thank God.

He was awake but still out of it when the EMT’s arrived. Although it took some convincing, he did go for an ambulance ride. I sat in the front, wearing mismatched clothes, no makeup, ratty flip flops, and my thoughts written all over my face.

I couldn’t believe how lucky we were. We came within 7 minutes of total and utter disaster. If he had that seizure while driving that car, going 50 miles an hour down 270 in rush hour, we would have been toast; a 270 grease spot. The truly frightening thing is that I’m not even being dramatic. Even if I responded as quickly as humanly possible, somehow took the wheel and made my legs longer than they actually are and somehow hit the break from the passenger seat while putting the car in park, we would have at least been rear-ended at a high rate of speed.

But I know that there would probably be little or nothing I could have actually done. This isn’t the movies. My reaction time would have been slowed just for the simple fact it would have taken a second to register what the fuck was happening.

We’re in for a long-haul. The good news is we know what to expect; doctors appointments, EKGs, medicine that makes him weird, trouble at work from the medicine, and me driving for the rest of our lives. When we went through this the first time 18 months ago, the doctor said it could be an isolated incident, but that if it happened again, it would be listed as epilepsy, and he’d have to go on medication for years.

The doctors office doesn’t open until 9, so I’m pretty much up and waiting to call them to see what the deal is. But it’s OK. As my Grandpa said in my dream, he’ll be fine—he has to be.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 6th, 2007 at 6:17 am and is filed under Past life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.