Simple Plan

by Melanie on 03/11/07 at 1:02 pm

Simple Plan, a boy band from Canada, has a song that perfectly captures what it’s like to wake up almost dead in a hospital. While their song is about drunk driving and how awful it is to kill or injure someone, the words nonetheless, are my words. They sing to me. I saw the blinding white, fluorescent light, I tried to make a sound but no one heard me, I was slipping off the edge, hanging by a thread, and I couldn’t make the pain go away, and I couldn’t erase what had happened, or get back what I had lost.

The video is wonderful. Especially the scene when the girl’s family learns that she has died. I can’t figure out how they could even film something like that. It’s exactly the way I felt when the reality came crashing down on me, too. How could this happen to me? The unanswerable question that is asked by every suffering human.

I like Simple Plan because they are what they seem to be: simple, direct, unambiguous.

My husband was in an accident when he was a teenager that killed his best friend, Michael. Michael was only 18, but was already married and had a young child. Michael was driving along those windy highways near Santa Cruz late at night. Both were probably not wearing seat belts, as this was 1973 or so. Michael ran into a tree or telephone pole. Dane smashed his head on the window. Both were disoriented and stumbled out of the car and staggered across the highway where they were both hit again by two different women drivers. Michael was killed, as I said, and Dane ended up with a bunch of broken bones, ribs, etc., kidney damage that left him peeing blood for a year and he went into a coma for three days.

Through an internet board, we got in touch a few years ago with Michael’s daughter. She had left a message asking for anyone who knew her father. She had been told that Dane had died, which obviously wasn’t true. I think her parents (or maybe she was raised by her grandparents, which would make more sense) wanted her to think that Dane was dead to hide the fact that Michael was at fault in the accident. I think that is a totally bizarre lie to tell a child, and it makes no real sense. Michael’s wife visited Dane in the hospital and, as Dane recalls it, wasn’t angry at him. So what gives?

I told the daughter that she should go to the police station in the town where it happened, or the library, and look up the police and newspaper reports. Dane’s blood was on the windshield on the passenger side of the vehicle. There’s no question that he wasn’t driving. It wasn’t his car.

A similar mixup (although there was no real mixup in Dane & Michael’s case. Just opportunistic parents using a kid in a coma as a scapegoat to cover up their son’s mistake, or his valium or marijuana habit) happened a few years back when the two Japanese UNR students were killed on Pyramid Highway when they tried to turn around and drove into an oncoming semi trailer. I knew one of the girls, but not very well. Akiko wasn’t driving, but because the girls looked similar and their purses got mixed up when the car was tossed around, the police made a mistake in their original report, even though the car belonged to the other girl. The other girl’s parents were at first furious with Akiko’s parents and they caused a scene. But Akiko’s parents were forgiving. They went out of their way to talk to the truck driver, and let him know they didn’t blame him. He was devastated, and was going to quit driving, but they tried to talk him out of it. I went to the memorial at Morrill Hall — 400 sobbing teenagers — god I hate teen funerals!; the funeral where I viewed Akiko’s body–people look so plastic when they have been dead for awhile. Like their eyes are glued shut. Or the funeral parlor has painted their skin and it’s not real anymore. I also went to the Buddhist memorial and took the flowers home. So unbelievably sad. Akiko’s younger sister was there. My little four-year-old went up and lit the incense and started chanting for Akiko. I remember looking at the back of her head. I had braided her long, brown hair in French braids. It was heart wrenching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2lhkCQkhu8

“Untitled”

I open my eyes
I try to see but I’m blinded by the white light
I can’t remember how
I can’t remember why
I’m lying here tonight

And I can’t stand the pain
And I can’t make it go away
No I can’t stand the pain

How could this happen to me
I made my mistakes
I’ve got no where to run
The night goes on
As I’m fading away
I’m sick of this life
I just wanna scream
How could this happen to me

Everybody’s screaming
I try to make a sound but no one hears me
I’m slipping off the edge
I’m hanging by a thread
I wanna start this over again

So I try to hold onto a time when nothing mattered
And I can’t explain what happened
And I can’t erase the things that I’ve done
No I can’t

How could this happen to me
I made my mistakes
I’ve got no where to run
The night goes on
As I’m fading away
I’m sick of this life
I just wanna scream
How could this happen to me

I made my mistakes
I’ve got no where to run
The night goes on
As I’m fading away
I’m sick of this life
I just wanna scream
How could this happen to me

[Thanks to worstdayever27@yahoo.com for these lyrics]

http://www.simpleplan.com/untitled/