The A La Carte

August 21st is a date etched in my bones. By then, 2024 had already taken its swings—my nephew’s death in March, the doctor’s words in July that felt like my own death sentence. I was standing, but barely. And then the phone rang.

It was my sister. My brother-in-law, my brother, really, because family is chosen as much as it’s given, had been in an accident. She didn’t know much yet. Work related. Propane tanks. Likely burns. Possibly crushed. My stomach dropped.

While we were on the phone, a flight nurse called her. They needed to confirm his name and birthdate before intubating him and airlifting him to Harborview, the largest trauma hospital within several states. Thirty minutes north, or an hour and a half if you hit traffic. She was already on her way, and I was now about 15 minutes behind her.

I wasn’t scared until we got to the ER and were ushered into a private family room. That’s when the weight hit me. I had no idea what we were about to walk into. But when they took us back, it wasn’t as bad as the horrors my mind had conjured. He looked… okay. Better than expected. I didn’t know much about burns at the time, but I was about to get a crash course I never wanted.

The first week blurred together. Ten plus days of him intubated, not awake, tests not always trending in our favor. A constant dance of waiting and worrying. And in between it all, a new rhythm: gowning up, stepping into a room heated far beyond comfortable for his skin to heal, sweating through plastic gowns until I almost passed out once.

There were four immediate surgeries—skin grafts and repairs to fill the holes left by the blast. Because yes, it was an explosion. They had been preparing to inspect an 18,000-gallon tank. The process involves venting fumes before inspection, but static in the air made a spark. Spark plus propane fumes equals boom. Chris had been closest to the tank, so he took the brunt of it. Worse, the enclosure meant when his clothes caught fire, he couldn’t see to run, so the flames lasted longer than they should have. The initial blast was bad enough. Being on fire afterward was worse.

But then—he started to wake up.

And with waking came relearning: how to swallow, how to eat, how to walk. Popsicles became a favorite. The day Seahawks receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba (a Buckeye, so you know I was paying attention) visited the hospital, he brought Chris a few pops. I may have slipped in an Ohio State jersey for him to sign while I was at it. For all the bad days, that one felt like a good one. A marker of progress, and a memory Chris actually kept.

There have been good days and bad days since. Months of check-ups, laser surgeries, compression clothing, physical therapy. More skin grafts to come. His second laser therapy is actually tomorrow.

But baseball was waiting for him. His community rallied around him, and he coached every single game this season—even the out-of-state tournaments. Just a year ago, we weren’t sure he would survive. This summer, he helped lead his team to a third-place finish at the World Series.

That’s resilience. His. My sister’s too. She showed up every single day in the hospital, then every day at home, helping him heal in a thousand unseen ways. This month, we got to celebrate his birthday. Last year, I would have taken that for granted. This year, I know how fragile and how extraordinary that day really is.

August 21st split my year in two. Before and after. Tragedy and survival. Loss and resilience. And though the scars—his, mine, all of ours—will never go away, neither will the reminder that even when the fire takes nearly everything, walking out is still possible.

It’s cliché until it isn’t: live each day like it could be your last. Because sometimes it almost is. And maybe more importantly—don’t waste your energy living like the small stuff is a fire. Save your strength for the things that truly matter.

xo,
Ande