The past 7 days have been quite extraordinary, reaching their peak on Monday.
Last week on Monday my Dad and I (we both live in Switzerland) received a phone call from the US, informing us, that his mother, my grandmother, was at a hospital in Mesa Arizona and that her chances of survival were a strong minus two on a scale from one to ten.
The following day, one day after her 85-th birthday, she passed away. We arranged flights and arrived in Salt Lake City Friday evening, where we were picked up by my cousin Jamie. That evening it had just started snowing in Utah. On the way home from the airport to Lehi and American Fork, we passed a car wreck approximately every 200-300 meters.
Saturday morning I found peace in shoveling the snow from Jamie’s drive way. I spent the afternoon visiting with my grandfather, renting a car and visiting other friends.
Sunday I was invited to the Utah Jazz game at the Delta Convention Center – my first NBA game. I purchased one of their small $ 5.- basketballs as a souvenir. After the game ended (the Jazz won by a margin of 11 points) I approached security and asked permittance to play the ball on the Jazz court, as it would improve the emotional value of my souvenir. My request was approved.
Afterwards I attended my grandmothers viewing at the Wing Mortuary in Lehi, Utah. Way over 100 people attended.
The following morning we all reunited at her funeral. My grandmother had planned and outlined her own funeral way in advance. I felt honored to fulfill her request to act as one of her pallbearers. It was a very nice, yet very emotional ceremony.
After the funeral, my Dad and I decided to drive out to the desert to reflect and ponder over the way death casts it’s shadow upon all of us. We missed the turnoff to Mercur, a little site up in the mountains that we had intended on taking and continued towards Tooele. Several minutes into the way we realized our error and changed directions back towards Lehi. While maneuvering the car I saw a yellow light flash two or three times further up in the mountain. We both suspected that someone might be shooting or playing with dynamite. Approximately 3 or 4 minutes later, as we continued up the hill, a cloud of dirt and dust evolved about 25 meters ahead of us on the left side of the road. I first suspected dynamite and figured “that’s getting dammed close to the road!”. About two seconds later, a brown car came flying through the cloud of dust and crashed into the ground left of us.
We immediately pulled over and approached the car. There was nobody inside. Then we heard a source of moaning and pain about 6 meters from the car. We approached the person who turned out to be sixteen year old Kari Wood from Lehi. She was laying on her stomach, bleeding from above the eye, the mouth and one ear.
Fortunately she had a cell phone, that we found within 15 seconds. I alerted 911 and passed the phone on to my dad for location details, as I didn’t know, what the area was called. I saw a further car coming up the hill, returned to the street and requested them to stop. The two men then assisted us with blankets in covering and comforting her.
Within 12-15 minutes an ambulance, two police cars, two fire trucks and one Sheriff patrol arrived on the scene. They took over care and flew her to the University of Utah Medical Center in Salt Lake.
After having filled out a police report (the asshole of an officer just gave us a form, didn’t offer any assistance in ridding our blood covered, freezing cold hands, nor would he help filling in his report, but preferred to stand around and gaff at the poor girl!) we returned to Lehi.
That evening I called the U of U Medical Center and spoke to Jill Wood, Kari’s mother. Evidently she had broken or fractured her fifth vertebrate and had a cut above her eye and ear, but would recover and might be able to leave the hospital as early as the following day.
Then I found comfort in Jamie’s family and dog as we watched movies. For one of the first times in my life, I was emotionally exhausted.
I wondered what might have led to two people living in Switzerland, wearing black suits, coming from their own family funeral, missing an exit out in the middle of the desert to witness this accident, alert emergency, only to return to Switzerland 48 hours later. I find comfort in the thought, that fate must be more than just a myth.
Tuesday morning I visited Novell, a Provo based company I once worked for. Bret, my favorite former colleague was at home, as his wife just gave birth to two twin girls one month ago. I went and visited him.
For over one hour I held Page Morgan Dayley, the sweetest, most innocent and inspiring human being I ever saw in my arms.
Within 24 hours I had gone from carrying my own grandmother to her grave, to holding a bleeding, injured 16 year old girl, to holding new life and hope.
Now I’m flying home.