Post traumatic stress disorder is powerful... If you were reading my blog about a year ago I think, Kaitlyn and I were heading into Ft Myers and got to a large intersection at Colonial and Summerlyn. While we sat on that rainy day at the red light a garbage truck made the turn in front of us and rolled on to a shinny black SUV rolled right over on it's side. The view caused many bottle necks which created a chain of wrecks all over the place from sheer shock. I remember looking at the SUV as if it was slow motion and seeing a woman in the drivers seat. My mind does not allow me to see anything more until it was over. The truck clearly smashed the SUV, killing the woman I had just looked at the second she was killed..Horrific for me and I had no idea who she was. The entire event happened as if we were watching something in slow motion and not real. Kaitlyn looked at me and said He is Dead. She automatically assumed with the truck on it's side he had to die.. When my light turned green I got out of the area and pulled over to cry and call my daughter to be able to verbally let it out. Kaitlyn talked about the man dying and I allowed her to think that but said he might have lived. I did not tell her the person in that car is dead... Kaitlyn talked about it while we were out.. When we got home that afternoon it was on the news as a lead into the dinner hour news.. Kaitlyn recognized the pictures and commented on the Dead "man" then she listened intensely and learned it was a 53 yr old woman and it was the black SUV... she was glued to the news and listened to it all. We talked about it until she could let it go.
When she and I drove to Miami last month she said to me while we were driving next to a garbage truck " HE LIVED MOM HE LIVED" as if that truck was the same driver as the one that tipped. She let it go as we went on our way and that was it....
Until today....
Apparently on their way home a bad car accident was on one of the roads which she saw. She came running in the house screaming mom a fire, a car on fire mom she is dead. She ran straight to my television as she did the news of that accident a year ago. Her face was an inch from the front of the TV...only it wasn't the news and it wasn't a lead...it was just whatever was on. She stood there almost shacking in fear. I asked her to calm down and tell me what happened. She said she was on the bus and they had to wait because a car was on fire. She said there were police, ambulance and a fire truck. When I questioned her if she saw the lady she said yes, she was talking to the police man. We talked about being dead she would not be talking to the police man so he must be helping her find a ride home since her car caught on fire But I agreed I would watch the news to see if anything was on to help her know what happened....
A minute later it was over and she was off to make her dinner, meet with her speech therapy and on to play... she has not said anything more.
