I Love You Dad

March 14th, 2014 I was at Durhamtown Off Road Park in Union Point Georgia. This was a place I’ve spent so much time with my family. A favourite place of my dads, and the most amazing MX & off road facility we’ve ever been to. One winter we even went there twice! The month of March is when you would find us there. Riding, training, practicing, meeting new friends, reconnecting with old ones. This was our place, our happy place. I would go down with my parents, sometimes just my dad & I, and then after I met my husband, with him & his friends. 2014 was my come back year. I had a few rough years in between after I blew my entire left knee apart at the AMA Red Bud National in 2011. We still went down south every winter to ride & have fun haha but the racing was just not working out for me. 2014 was going to be my year. We were doing the entire series again, traveling to 10 different states for races & making some more of the best memories with my family.

My husband & I left for Georgia March 8th 2014. My parents & niece would be joining us the following week. (My niece has never came before so this was going to be quite the experience for her!) Then it happened. March 14th 2014 happened. My husband woke me up with a cell phone in his hand. Telling me the phone is for me and he’s sitting beside me rubbing my back. I was so out of it! We were out late the night before I was so tired & sore from riding. I heard my mom on the other end crying. First thing that came to mind was one of my grandparents had died. They are both in their 80’s and it is expected once you get up there in age. So ok I take a deep breath. Ready for the news. She starts saying they were in an accident on their drive down, my mind is going a million miles a minute at this point, the next thing she says is “& dad didn’t make it” Wait what?! Now my life is flashing before my eyes, I’m sad, angry, confused, I don’t know what to say or do but start balling my eyes out. This is the very moment my worst nightmare had happened. I lost my dad. My best friend. My travel buddy. My Moto dad. He’s gone.

Pack up time. We need to pack up all our stuff, our quads, food, everything we had to be staying 3 weeks down south riding. Luckily we had friends there that all came over and helped. All people who we met years and years ago racing & who were some of my dads best friends from the track.

The drive from Georgia to Kentucky seemed like the longest drive of my life. I didn’t speak. Cried. But didn’t speak. My phone was going off like crazy. Text messages, fb messages, instagram messages, everyone trying to get ahold of me. The accident & what had happened was being shared around facebook with the cover picture being my dads work truck smashed to pieces. Again, all of my worst nightmares were becoming true.

My sister Angela flew down right away & my moms brother & sister-in-law drove down with my other sister Melissa. (my nieces mom) On our drive to Kentucky, I found out that my niece had been airlifted to the hospital from the side of the highway. She was going to live, but her back was broken, she has major head trauma, and she couldn’t move her legs. The next few days we were being told once they go in & do surgery on her back, put the rods in, fix it all, that it could relieve the pressure on her spine, to be able to feel her legs again. Surgery day came, & I will never forget that moment. We were all brought into a sitting room with a white board on the wall. The surgeon drew on the board what he did and went on and on about how successful it went, everything turned out great. BUT… her spinal cord is damaged. (I don’t even remember the exact words he used, as its the next part that haunts me) Someone asked will she be able to walk again? And his answer was… it would honestly take a miracle… Wait what!? My smart, amazing niece that was on the right path in life, was now paralyzed. She is alive yes, but she has lost something too. Once she was stable a couple days later, she was then airlifted back to Toronto Canada to a spinal cord hospital where she would stay & learn about her new body & new life that is to come.

We all make our way back home, where time is spent crying, crying even more, and planning a funeral. If I wasn’t crying, I was either sleeping, drinking, or smoking weed. That’s my my life turned into. I honestly spent the next 2 years waking up, getting high until I went to sleep at night. It would stop me from crying, from feeling the pain, but little did I know I was actually getting more and more depressed. Oh yeah, and planning our wedding since it was only in 3 months. I now had to get married without my dad walking me down the aisle. Without doing our father daughter dance. Without my dad handing me off to my husband to be. (Whom I might add is like my dad in a lot of ways & I will forever love him for that) I didn’t even care about our wedding anymore. I didn’t care about anything. I had childhood friends walk out of my life because they couldn’t handle me anymore, they couldn’t handle what I was going through. Our photographer backed out weeks before the wedding for personal reasons. I had to get my dress altered to fit the 35 pounds I gained in 3 months. Bridesmaids & groomsmen were changed with such short notice. No one could just stand behind us and support what we were going through. No matter how crazy I was being, I needed them. Was it too much to ask? Maybe. But no one will ever understand what I was going through then, and I don’t expect them too.

My mother, my poor mother. I can’t even imagine what she’s been through. She was driving the truck, so naturally, she feels like it’s all her fault. She suffered from a brain injury, and the feeling that she killed her husband & paralyzed her granddaughter. She has carried this weight on her shoulders for 5 years now. I wish I could take the pain away from her. I wish she could be happy again. But I know I would feel like my life was over if I was in her position. She lost her sole mate, her life partner, her other half. They started dating as teenagers and spent the rest of their lives together. She was not suppose to lose him yet. I would never want to lose the love of my life, I would never want to think I killed him, I would never want to be in her place I just wouldn’t. She’s still not doing very well & I don’t know if it will ever change. You expect to grow old with the love of you life, you don’t ever expect that to be ripped out from under you. Mom if you’re reading this, I love you. I need you. Grayson needs you.

Alright, its time to end this off on a positive note. 2 years later, in the month of march, after not being able to get pregnant for a year & a half. It happened. The test was positive! We were blessed with a little happiness in the most horrible month of the year. The month that makes us all sad, depressed, down, now was the biggest blessing in our life! So this is why I talk about Grayson 24/7. Why I want to be around him 24/7. Why I think he is the most perfect human in the world! He pulled me out of my misery. Made me want to live again, celebrate life, and just be happy! He was the rainbow at the end of the storm. I consider him my rainbow baby for a different reason than other moms do. For the reason that I was in the darkest part of my life where I felt I just wanted to be miserable until the day I die (which in all honesty, I was hoping sooner rather than later) & I didn’t even care. I didn’t care about anyone else. Then he happened. He came into our lives. He makes me smile every day. He gives me life. Although I still struggle with hard days, they are no where near as hard as they used to be. My dad is watching down on him, he’s so proud of me & I know it. He would be so happy with everything I’ve done & how far I’ve come. There is a little piece of him in Grayson and that is all I need now.

Lots of Love ♥

Kaitlyn Xo