A Brush with Death

One morning in June of 1968, I guess, I was getting Mary Ann and John Dan's clothes organized for them to go to camp, I think. Maybe they were already at Camp. The phone rang. I was alone.
This foreign-speaking man told me that Jim had been in a car accident.
He had been driving Carolyn’s blue Mustang on a wet morning when a bus hit him near Pasadena. Jim was seriously injured and the doctor wanted to know could he have my permission to operate on him.
I didn't know what kind of doctor he was, and he said they had contacted Carolyn and she was on her way.
I asked if he couldn't wait until she got there. The doctor said Jim might not be alive by the time she got there, so I gave my permission.
John came home immediately. Waneta Ezell came over and made my flight arrangements. Alice Sells came over and packed my bag and promised to look after Mary Ann and John Dan.
I was on the way to the airport in nothing flat. DFW airport had not been built at that time, so I guess I was leaving from Love Field. John and I walked into the ticket area, and they held the plane for me.
John ran with my luggage, and I ran to the plane as they were about to lift up the stairs.
Rennie met my plane and took me to the Bay Shore Hospital in Pasadena, where we stayed for three weeks, I think.
Jim was unconscious for days and Rennie stayed in the Intensive Care Unit with him. The nurses had trouble getting Jim to use the urinal, and Rennie took care of that. He was there with Jim, night and day. I was in the Intensive Care Waiting Room. Rennie came out often to give me news.
Finally, Jim was able to go to a private room. He remembered nothing and had aphasia. Couldn't think of the names of things.
Grandpop came for the weekend and tried to help Jim remember things.
The doctor came in every morning and asked Jim what he held in his hand. It could be a pencil, but Jim might call it a stethoscope.
He got better. Later, they wanted an ear specialist to check his hearing. We went to a private office, and after the examination, the doctor came to us and said, he was afraid he had bad news for us. I was ready for anything. "This young man has totally lost the hearing in his left ear." Well, of course, he had never had any hearing in that ear, so that was good news.
Later, Carolyn and Rennie were planning a vacation, so Jim and I stayed in their apartment when they left. Soon Paul Bradbury came over to stay with Jim, and I went home to be with the rest of the family.
Alice had been looking after John Dan and Mary Ann and took them to Red River, New Mexico on their vacation. Paul helped Jim to recover a lot of his memory. We thought he couldn't go back to school in the fall, but Paul helped him remember.
The doctors had said his memory might never return. But it must have sharpened his memory. John came down to bring me back to Fort Worth and to visit with Jim. Jim sang that Harold Hill soliloquy about pool after school for him then, and we knew that his memory was back.
None of the other children were ever injured seriously. One was enough ! What a terrible time, it was. That was a hard story to relive.