12 dead and 1 alive.

I’ve been watching the video footage of the West Virginia folk mourning and questioning…and questioning and questioning. Every time I’ve seen them cry, I’ve seen myself cry too.

Now ‘The 1’, as the West Virginians refer to him, should be coming back into conciousness any day now. Even though in a medically induced coma state he seems acknowledge his son, his daughter, his wife. The doctors are hesitant and humane about ‘miscommunication’: Brain damage is sustained after just three hours of oxygen depravation, and Randy went nearly 40 hours without. Still, his family maintains hope that he will wake up and join them again just the same.

I can’t believe with them that he is wanting to wake up in this lifetime. 12 dead, and he is ‘The 1’. Surviving that scene of grown men crying and fumbling for pencils and paper and writing out their final calm fatherly words in a dark suffocating cavern should be something you could wake up from. Like we did when we’ve had this nightmare.