"Ron Update"

This one will be brutal.

I'm going to give a little background, and then talk about the worst day of my life.  Hop in my time machine, we're going back to 2003.

Ron and I had been managing two businesses, a deli and the vending.  The deli was open nights, and all the vending deliveries came during the day; which meant Ron and I worked a lot of 16 hour days with no overtime.  I remember, Christmas 2002 was fantastic because I actually got 2 days off in a row.

We had a hard time finding "quality" help (translated - people who understood food safety and wouldn't steal or give away the store), so I worked a swing shift in the deli, in addition to helping Ron with deposits and vending business every morning.

Ron walked to work every morning, a little under 2 miles.  He always crossed the same street.  It's a busy street, but he crossed safely, every day, for almost 2 years.  Prior to that, he had always walked to work for 30 years, including crossing other, busy, streets.

We had called the City of Houston about the streetlight; it was out and Ron warned them; a terrible accident could happen if you don't get this fixed.  And he kept walking to work.

The deli lost money, consistently.  People had a hard time understanding, it doesn't matter if you get 10 customers every 3 hours, that can't meet payroll, much less meet the cost of goods.  Ron kept begging the state to close the deli, but they kept refusing.  It was someone's pet project.

We couldn't even afford a business checking account, and we had to pay the vendors cash.  So, when Ron left the house that morning he had a lot of cash in his backpack.

In the meantime, a guy at work, named Roy.  He drove a piece of heavy equipment in the plant, and got into a lot of near-miss type accidents.  He just isn't a good driver.  He worked nights.   He had 5 little kids at home.

Roy was in a big hurry when he left work that day, and accelerated as he approached the red light.  He "blew" the light and hit my husband, who was crossing the street.  Ron had the light.  Roy did not.

Ron suffered many injuries on impact, a badly broken leg that required surgery, massive road rash from being dragged about a block down the street, broken ribs, ruptured subclavian artery, lacerated kidney, and a punctured lung.  He suffered massive damage to his brain, both a "twist" DIA injury, and multiple bruises (to the brain), on "all" lobes, from the actual impact (coup-contracoup injury).  He actually lay, dead, in the road, until paramedics revived him.

The officer sent to investigate the accident robbed my husband of the cash (including my rent money) in the backpack, and phonied up the accident report.  Ron was crossing south.  The driver was going east.  Ron was hit on the right side.  All adds up, right?  That's what REALLY happened.  The way the officer wrote it up, Ron was going north - which he wouldn't have because that was AWAY from work.  The only way Ron could have been injured that way, is if he'd run into the street BACKWARDS.  You can bet Officer "B" is on the prayer list.

He also came to the hospital the next day and said the accident was MY fault, because I "let" Ron out of the house unaccompanied.  It's a good thing I was so tired when I met him, of I'd have an assault charge on my record.

Even though Roy clearly broke the white cane law - ran a red light, etc... Officer B let him off.  He didn't even get a ticket for killing my husband.   Lovely.

A couple years later, I was out on the loading dock, waiting on my milk man.  Roy came around a corner, going too fast, and almost hit me.  Guess we didn't learn our lesson.

The only consolation, for me, was the fact that Roy's auto insurance paid up - the hospital got $10K, the lawyer got $8K, and we got $2K to pay off the credit card.  Yeah, that's it.  2 thousand dollars for a lifetime in a wheelchair.

Hard NOT to be bitter.  Especially when Roy is walking around, perfectly fine; and Ron is not.  Especially when everyone at work acted like Roy was the victim, and Ron just leapt out and assaulted his car.  I don't care if he's a "nice" guy; he killed my husband.  I don't talk about the accident at work; I get too intense when the apologists start defending the guy.

I did have some small satisfaction; Ron totaled the truck.  Roy has now bought a very similar-looking truck.  Ick.  I also heard he was unable to drive for a couple years due to sky-high insurance.  Good.  If one of your drivers runs over a blind man because he ran a red light; you'd better charge him a high rate!

I work, very hard, on forgiving him.  The "nice guy" was calling me every day in the ICU waiting room.  He did feel terrible.  Ron always remarks the guy took a week off work.  He had asked me to call his house if anything major happened.

When I finally got (encouraging) MRI results back, I called his house.  Mrs Roy answered and got a major attitude with me (she's actually the reason I pushed Ron to sue); she never wanted to hear from me again.  They didn't know any "Ron" and didn't care how he was doing.  Very, very, ugly.  So I hung up and never called again.

I had set up the answering machine, I would record a new message every day with the "Ron update".   I gave the number to everyone, and even the sandwich lady was calling every day for her updates.  When Ron was "sort of" talking, I had him grunt a message out for everyone; I assume Roy heard about the Ron update and just called that after his wife got so ugly.

Now, I have to interject.  I pray for Roy, his wife, his family, every day.  I pray for Officer B.  I pray for other people who have hurt me, and Ron, but they're at the top of the list.  God commands me to pray for them, and forgive them.

Normally, I think I do OK.

Today, however, I came out of work.  I sit at the "bus stop" and wait on our paratransit ride.  We have multiple driveways and new drivers usually get confused, and enter the wrong parking lot.  If I'm out there, I can wave, and get them over to us.  I wait, until the ride arrives.  Then I call Ron and he comes staggering out of the door, and climbs aboard.

That's the way we do it.  Works very well, has for several years now.

Until I came out and saw Roy and his wife sitting in a pickup truck, very similar to what destroyed my husband's mobility.  They were having a romantic picnic lunch in the car.  And they had parked in front of the bus stop.  I HAD to look at them every time I scanned the street for our driver.

I just boiled inside as I saw them chatting, laughing.  They had the use of their entire bodies.  They could drive, walk, and raise both arms above their head without assistance.  They didn't NEED a wheelchair, ever.

And my husband does, because  this stupid, selfish, bastard ran a red light because "I was in a hurry".

The old Heather, prior to medication, would have gotten up and asked them to move, telling them I was the wife of the man he maimed.  Instead, I opted to call my aunt and chat with her as I kept looking for our ride.

I did have quite a bit of satisfaction; when the "Metrolift" came into the parking lot - they acted like it was some kind of Molotov cocktail.  Roy bolted into the building (and encountered Ron coming out).  The wife ran out of there like someone set her tailpipe on fire.

So they feel guilty; at least.  They don't LIKE to see what he did to my husband.  Good.  I hope they choke on it.