that girl you know.

barefeetanddreams:

Warning, this story is based on real events and contains violence.

This is me and my brother, in ‘07. He was 18 and I was 12, still just a little girl. Me and Andrew had always been good siblings. Never had any fights, and Andy had a good influence on me. He stuck up for me when I got in trouble, he kept me away from drugs, and when I’d had a bad day he’d say “come home bro, I’ll make some hot chocolate and you can tell me all about it.” He was joking, as usual, but it would still happen. In this photo, there weren’t enough seats for me to sit with his friends so I sat on his lap whether he liked it or not. He teased me, then wrapped me in the blanket.

In ‘08, our family was on a day trip, during a weekend away. This was years after being diagnosed with major depressive disorder and I was finally at peace with my step dad, who was driving. Before getting back in the car to go back to the crib, my brother and I played paper-scissors-rock to see who would sit in the middle seat, the seat that only had a seat belt that goes across your lap. He lost. We were on our way back to the crib, and I was asleep. My mum was in the front, step dad was driving, my brother in the middle in the back, I was beside him, and someone who was with us on the other side of him. No one was watching the road except my step dad, who was going 90km/h. We were on a gravel road, and approaching a blind corner, when he cut it, going across on the wrong side of the road. I heard my mother scream something and we hit a truck, head on. I woke up in time to see bodies flying and I felt the shock and pain of the impact and the deafening sound of car vs truck, then everything went black.

After running from the car, I turn around to see my brother half off his seat, eyes half open, blood pouring from his face and he was making some sick moaning sound. Panicking I tried to open my mothers door but she was trapped, and screaming. I looked at the truck we hit, and I saw the driver. He was slouching in his seat, his face white, his eyes were staring, unblinking, at me. The weird thing was, I thought “he’s dead, I need to help the living.”

When I got back to my brother, my mum and step dad had got him out of the car and onto the road. When I saw that he had wet his pants, I knew that something was seriously wrong. He kept talking to me and saying weird things and didn’t make sense.

I ran to get my cell, but there was no reception.

An hour later, I was in the back of an ambulance, my brother beside me. I couldn’t breathe on my own anymore. (later found out I had broken ribs) By now there were several fire engines, ambulances and police cars everywhere. There were paramedics everywhere, between me and my brother. They were working on him.  I heard him throwing up, and heard a medic say “he’s throwing up too much blood.” It was about then I went into shock, and later he was taken away in a helicopter I couldn’t even hear. 

That night, in a strange hospital, I was saying goodbye to my brother, “just in case he doesn’t make it, sweetie..” as my mother said. After hours I was able to leave my bed in the emergency room and visit him before they flew him away again. His face was a sick pale grey/blue. His golden curls were matted with blood. He had been put into a coma. Machines were everywhere, keeping him alive. I held his hand, and it was cold. When you touch someone’s skin, you can feel them inside. You can feel their personality, your shared memories, the essence of them, under their skin. I couldn’t feel that in my brother. All I held was an empty, cold, white hand. My brother, wasn’t there. I whispered “I love you Andrew, I always will”, and let all the doctors take him away. 

My brother survived. No one knows how, the only thing we can guess is that he was very, very lucky. The countless doctors, brain surgeons, are all surprised. He had several long emergency surgeries on his brain and face, one taking up to 11 hours. My brother is still with me today, and although a little different, I count every smile, every joke, every day as a blessing. It’s taken three and a half years but he’s almost back to the state he was in before the crash.

I never thought something so horrible could happen to us, to my brother. To think that he was about to die, being told by my mother and the surgeons that he might not be around much longer, is unexplainable. No one can comprehend it until it happens, I swear.

I want everyone to know what happened. I want everyone to know the trauma, and pain that has been caused to my family because of careless driving. Never, ever, speed. You never know what could happen. Please, reblog, just reblog.

something that confuses me is that a meaningless post of mine (a picture of the back of a girls head) is almost at 4,000 notes. But this doesn’t go further then over 600. Not going to reblog this because it’s not “pretty” or “pleasant”? This means something. It means a lot. And it will mean a lot to me and my brother if you reblog this.