My family is grieving. It is hard to see them hurt. My dad's factory is where Eric's accident happened. Eric was working on a stripping machine. He had loaded a large trailer hitch into the machine, closed the doors and pushed the button to slowly lower the metal into the 850 degree salt bath. Something terrible happened-the perfect storm for a reaction. The metal failed-burst and created such pressure that the doors blew off of the machine and molten salt went EVERYWHERE. Eric was knocked off of his feet and was bathed in salt. My dad heard the explosion and jumped off of the forklift that he was on. He crashed onto his knees and then ran to Eric. Todd (another employee) ran over to Eric and tried to put out Eric's clothes which were on fire. They couldn't help him enough even though they tried. Eric could still talk and he told them that it wasn't their fault and that this was an accident. Then he started to sing praises to God. I think that is when he saw the glory of the Lord. I know that he knew where he was going and that it was waiting right there for him. He was going to go home. Eric always felt sad that after he went to college he felt like he had no home. His parents love him, they still have a home but he didn't feel that thing that you feel when you are a little kid. He was never able to articulate the idea that he felt like a stranger on earth and that what he really wanted was to be at home with his Jesus. He is exactly where he should be-singing praise to Jesus face to face instead of in our home.
Eric was rushed to the hospital. They washed him off and then they put him in a medical coma. They inserted a breathing tube to secure his airway and then when they had gotten him all situated for transportation they let me see him. He was very yellow. I thought that he would look scary but he just looked yellow and patchy. His eyes were closed, hair was gone, and there was a smell. I felt numb.
We drove to Madison and I jabbered away nervously. I tried the best that I could to keep from thinking the worst. God told me before we even left the house that he would die but I didn't want to believe my ears. When I got there the staff was waiting. I asked them what was going on and they said that he had third degree burns over 99 percent of his body and that there was not enough skin to fix the damage that had been done. His kidneys had shut down and that all of this other organs would soon follow. I asked them how long I had with Eric and they said that they were waiting for me to decide. For me to decide? How could I? I knew that I had to wait for the family to get to the hospital and then I would "decide".
That night was when my heart broke. I ached for Eric, the life we were supposed to have, the life that we had already lived, the father that my kids wouldn't know and for the kids that I couldn't have with Eric. I wanted to wake up. I wanted to make it all stop. I wanted to make sense of this information that they were telling me. I wanted Eric back. Before my eyes he slipped away. His heart stopped the next day in the morning. They turned his ventilator off and he was gone for good. I held his body and wept. I pretended that I was laying my head on his sleeping chest and I remembered the contentment that I would feel when I would snuggle down with him at night and talk. I wished that I could do that again and yet I knew that that was the last time.
Funerals, visits, prayers, condolences, death certificates, social security visit, cremation, urns, autopsy, workers compensation, OSHA investigations...
Now we are trying to live. The kids won't stop growing, seasons don't stop changing (in wisconsin we do wonder if God forgot that our winter should be turning to spring soon) and I can't give up hope. I hope in our God that can make all things good. I want to take away the pain from my kids, my dad, my mom, Eric's family, the guys that Eric worked with, the church people that Eric worked with, the soldiers that Eric ministered to, the people who meet us after the fact and the pain that I feel but I can't. You can't rob grief of its time that it spends with you. I can try to push it aside but it can't and will not go away-I have to walk with it and so does everyone else.
I am glad that I got to say goodbye to Eric. I am glad that he is with his Jesus. I am glad that he is in no pain and that he is singing praises to God. I know that he is learning all that he possibly can and that when I see him again some day that it will be a joyous reunion. He is not my God but we serve the same one true God.
1 comment:
I just came across your blog, and it is scary how much your blog and situation is just like mine. My husband, Bobby, was burned here at our home the morning of January
28, 2010 and was rushed to a hospital in a town 75 miles away to be treated at their burn unit. Bobby was burned over 40% of his body, lower half front and back. He was tearing down an old pole barn in our backyard and was burning the wood in a fire pit. A wind gust caught the flame and it was blown in to the direction he was standing. When I got to the local hopsital and was able to see him, he was already sedated and had been intibated so he could breath. My hubsband had become sick three years before his accident and was considered disabled and was not able to work. His breathing was very labored on a good day. When the hospital staff told me he was going to be airlifted to the other hospital I was told we could go outside to watch the helicopter take off. That the was the scariest moment, at that time, in my life. Watching the helicopter take off, my pastor was there and was praying for Bobby. But I was not sure if he would survive the trip down to the other hospital. I went home and packed a bag and my mother drove me to the other hospital. Thankfully, ouon and his family live in the town where my husband was taken to so he was able to be there when the helicopter arrived with my husband. The whole drive down, 1 hour and 30 minutes, I did the same thing. Talked non-stop. I felt much better when I was able to see him and he was being evaluated by the burn unit staff. He had three skin graft surgeries and after the last one he was having a lot of trouble breathing so they put him on a ventilator and the next day his kidneys started shutting down so he was put on dialysis. A week after he was put on the ventilator I and my step-children made the decision, a hard one to make, to remove him from the ventilator. I was with my husband when his heart stopped beating and he was taken in to the arms of our Everlasting Lord. He died on February 24, 2010. It has been a hard year for me and our 11 year old daughter, learning to do things around the house on our own, salt in the water softener, yard work, minor repairs and upkeep of the house. The Lord kept me strong while Bobby was in the hospital and He has kept me strong for the last 11 months but I too want to be with my husband and hold him in my arms again. Thank you so much for writing your blog, I will be keeping up with it. If you would like you can check out my blog www.crowdersat144celeryavenuenorth.blogspot.com
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