Crystal Trucking

What is Crystal Trucking? That is/was the name of my father's trucking company. Why is that the title? I'll get to that. But first, these words.

Life has gone on. Much has changed. Been in and out of a couple relationships. Then, I meet my husband-to-be one night. Yes, it was at a club. Yes, I was surprised when it didn't last forever! Anywho, I get a call from an uncle and good friend of my father telling me my father was in an accident. He is at a hospital in Columbia and may not make it through the night is what I was told. After I slightly compose myself, my betrothed and I hit the road. It was about a 2 hour drive...and I honestly didn't know what to expect. It didn't matter because I wouldn't have expected what I saw anyway.

It was a pretty bad accident. He was driving one of those car haulers, and it was empty. I saw pictures later in the daylight. The cab of the truck had two things that you could actually distinguish: the driver's seat and the steering wheel. There was nothing else. The outer shell of the truck wasn't there. There was no passenger seat...nothing. The entire front wheel axle -left and right- was sitting about 7 feet away from the cab. The back skeletal structure where the cars sit? It looked like someone just crumpled it in their hands. And my father? There wasn't a lot of blood or bandages. But, his head was swollen to almost twice it's normal size! Can you even imagine that? No, not juts the face, the whole head. His eyes couldn't even close all the way, due to massive amount of swelling. He was on a ventilator. The doctors said his lungs were fine, but that was to help reduce the swelling to his brain. Every bone on the left side of his face was crushed and he lost his left eye. From the the neck down? Nothing.

It took time, but he healed. I would go over almost every day after work and sit with him and help him out. My grandmother went over one day, while he was in the hospital and cleaned his house top to bottom. Then one day, I came over for my usual visit, and he and the girlfriend were going over bills for his trucking company. I was so proud of him, he had realized that dream for himself. Until I saw the name on the checks. Crystal Trucking! That would be the girlfriend's daughter's name!!! She was a few years younger than me, be he took to her like she was his own child, mainly because of her no-good, crackhead, thieving mother!

I am the baby of nine children by my father. Five of us are girls. You don't think he could have picked one of HIS actual children to name his company after? Or wow, here's a thought: Maybe even his own last name! That hurt me to my soul for years and years. It just seemed like no matter what I did, I was never going to be good enough to be more important than someone else's child!

I called my mom, in tears, still in shock about what I had just saw. Being the defender she is. She called him and gave a good size piece of her mind! That's why I wish my mom a Happy Father's Day every year!

That incident for my father and me, was the beginning of the end.