When Bad Things Happen to Good People

In every household, there exist certain sayings that light up the room. For example, my mom loves the phrase, “Buck up!” She usually utters it when I am down on myself, my dad is having a tough week at the office, or when my brother just got a bad mark on a test. My dad on the other hand, sticks to more comical remarks sucks as “How y’all doin?” or “Yeehaw maynard!” You see, his family first lived in Missouri, then reluctantly made its way up to Wisconsin, where people refrain from saying “y’all.” Now, however, my family lives by a more serious, more important saying: Bad things happen to good people.

On August 16, 2009 my life changed in a split second. My mom and I sat upstairs sorting my closet for college. My brother, like every sixteen year old, was at the local Sendik’s bagging groceries for nominal pay. My dad came up to let my mom and I know he was going for a quick motorcycle ride. Literally 3 minutes passed and my dad was back. He forgot to grab the movie we rented the night before. He was trying to be thoughtful and return it to the store so one of us didn’t have to, but my brother took it back on his way to work. I told this to my day while also modeling my mom’s old prom dress. He gave out a laugh and was on his way out again.

This is the part that begins to blur. Five minutes later, the phone rang. It was a random number so my mom tried to persuade me to let voicemail get it, but I had a gut feeling. I should answer this call. Scott Bergman. 262-673-2060. I will remember that name and number for the rest of my life. “Your husband has been hit on his motorcycle.” That’s all I had to hear before I started to hyperventilate. “Where is he? Where is he? Where is my dad!” I screamed.

“On the corner of Pioneer and I-43” Mr. Bergman answered.

“That’s a mile from our house! We will be there in two minutes!” I hung up the phone and my mom and I were out the door before I could even grab a pair of shoes. Thoughts were racing through my head. How am I going to find him? Who hit my dad? Is he going to be all right? I was so nervous because I saw my dad leave and I remembered that he did not have his motorcycle jacket on, the one with all the protective padding, for the first time ever. It was the first eighty degree day of summer, he was working outside all day and he was hot and wanted to take a quick ride to cool off. This jacket was his protection. If he didn’t have it on, how did he survive this crash?

My mom and I cruised down our road going a million miles per hour. We reached the intersection – no dad. I saw a minivan, a dented in SUV, but no Suzuki 1200 Bandit. Then I saw him. I was out of the car and at the bottom of the ditch before my mom even stopped the car. “DADDY!” My father was lying helpless in the ditch. He was conscious, breathing, lucid…

“I’m O.K. Jess. Daddy’s O.K. It’s just my foot.”

I looked more closely at him and his left foot was twisted, bent, turned around…not his normal left foot. He has an impeccable pain tolerance so he laid there and described what happened. He was driving down our quiet road, when a lady in her SUV made a left turn, not realizing he was right in front of her. She made a left turn and ran over MY dad. He tried to swerve and almost escaped. Three more inches would have done it. His bike went flying in the air, he landed in a ditch 200 feet away. A lady ran over my dad. How could someone do this?

If you know my dad, he is the safest driver on a motorcycle you will ever encounter. My brother and him would ride their dirt bikes as a hobby, but now Corey is sixteen and wanted to drive on the roads. My dad was always cautious with Corey and told him repeatedly, “You have to drive like you’re on defense. There are some inattentive drivers out there who will not notice you on a motorcycle, so you have to be on the lookout for these people constantly.” Like I said, he is the safest motorcycle driver you will find. His helmet that he was wearing that day saved his life.

Luckily the ambulance, five police cars and a fire truck arrived. Good thing too. If I had to wait another second at the scene, the unaware woman would have had my fist in her face. The paramedics loaded my dad into the ambulance and I rode with while my mom went home and locked up the house. The paramedic in charge told me my dad’s break was so severe it could possibly be an amputation. Amputation. Hearing the word just makes me shudder.

I stayed by my dad’s side, but he was air lifted to the best orthopedic trauma hospital. I am going to skip the gory details, but after long hard work, there was nothing else the surgeons could do for my father. Two days after the accident, they took my father’s foot.

It has been almost six months since my father’s accident and that day still haunts us. He has maintained such an optimistic outlook on life. Instead of thinking about what he doesn’t have, he remembers what he does: his life. It is miraculous that he survived the crash to begin with. When an SUV rams a motorcycle, the outcome is never this good. My dad’s life, my life and my family’s life will change forever, but it slowly improves as the months pass.

The small phrase, bad things happen to good people, never crossed my mind until August 16^th. We have always been such a privileged family. To this day we wonder why on Earth this happened to us. My dad wasn’t a crazy Harley owner who raced down freeways with a T-shirt and a do rag. Instead, he was a cautious driver, always wore his helmet and constantly was on the lookout for inattentive motorists.

Bad things happen to good people. A short, upfront sentence that presents its idea clearly. It doesn’t present the in a comical manner, nor does it understate or overstate it. The saying applies a serious tone that essentially achieves its entire meaning. Irony. This six word sentence ironically changed our life in an instant. One would assume that only bad things happen to bad people. However, in this scenario, a traumatic accident led to a dramatic life change for an amazing man and his entire family. August 16^th came and gone. We are not going to let a six letter saying paralyze our entire lives. Therefore we chose to live by another one of my mom’s sayings, one that picks us up on the cloudiest days: don’t let this tragic accident define who you really are.