Douglas Segal - Struck: A Husbands Memoir of Trauma and Triumph

Table of Contents

advance praise

Struck is a beautiful testament to the magic ability we carry as humans to come together and heal from the most impossible wreckage. Douglas Segals story moves your heart to break into a billion pieces and warms it back together with the brilliance, sincerity, and humor of his writing.

Jill Soloway, creator of the Amazon show Transparent and author of She Wants It

If love is the answer, the question is, how do I add more of it into my life? Susan and Dougs story of resilience teaches us not only how to survive lifes biggest challenges, but how to make life worth living.

Annabelle Gurwitch, author of I See You Made an Effort and Wherever You Go, There They Are

This inspiring and heartwarming book underlines the importance of faith and love in the face of trauma.

Publishers Weekly

A powerful book that shows us a new way to look at incredible hardship. Being struck is not a tragic end, but rather a beginning: an opportunity to experience the awe-inspiring effects of love, community, and grit.

Amy Silverstein, author of Sick Girl and My Glory Was I Had Such Friends

Struck is the captivating tale of a family being hit by a thunderbolt and dealing with the aftermath. Brilliantly written, beautifully observed, with humor in even the darkest moments, its an Everyman journey past near-death to a resolution that borders on the miraculous.

Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer, author of Killers of the King and The Spencers

Struck is an extraordinary love story. Doug Segalss fluid, honest, insightful, funny, and very public look at his and Susans marriage couldnt have been made up even by the best Hollywood writer, of which Doug is one. Its a real-life story about what it takes for a woman to survive getting hit by a bus. This is a tale of human resilience, inner strength, courage, compassion, patience, acceptance, and appreciation of whats most importantthe love of a man and a woman, of family, friends, and community. Its also a story about really good parenting, about Dougs loving care for his children while Susan was in the hospital, and their courage as they contemplated losing their mother.

Rabbi John L. Rosove, author of Why Judaism Matters: Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to his Children & the Millennial Generation and senior rabbi at Temple Israel of Hollywood

Copyright 2018 by Douglas Segal

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published by Prospect Park Books

2359 Lincoln Avenue

Altadena, CA 91001

www.prospectparkbooks.com

Distributed by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution

www.cbsd.com

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data is in process. The following is for reference only.

Names: Segal, Douglas, author.

Title: Struck: A husbands memoir of trauma and triumph / by Douglas Segal.

Identifiers: ISBN 9781945551390 (ebook)

Subjects: Memoir

Cover design by David Ter-Avanesyan

Book layout and design by Amy Inouye, Future Studio

For Susan

I never wrote you a show,

but I did write you a book.

Contents

T he phone rings. I check the caller ID and dont recognize it; Im not going to answer. Ive got twenty-five minutes before I have to get on a conference call with Disney, and before that, I want to rewrite a couple of lines of a television pilot Im delivering today.

But the phone continues to ring. I wait for the answering machine to get it, but for some godforsaken reason, its not picking up. I exhale, annoyed because I know the call is either going to be for Susan (shes the only one who receives calls on the home line, and she left to take Alyce to school ten minutes ago) or its the latest of 300 recent attempts to sell me something I have absolutely no interest in. Because of the persistent ringing and the malfunctioning answering machine, Im going to have to answer it.

Hello, I say, an edge in my voice.

The reply on the other end surprises me.

Daddy, its me. Its Alyce, my twelve-year-old daughter, her sweet yet scared voice on the other end. But why is she calling from this strange number, and worse, why is she crying and why does she sound so frightened?

Mommy was just in a car accident.

My heart stopsand then immediately begins pounding.

Are you all right?

Yes.

Is Mommy?

Another deep sob.

I dont knowI dont think so. Come quick.

Were all familiar with the saying There but for the grace of God go I. On this particular October morning, that grace was goneand it was I.

W ord of the accident spread faster than the typical hyper-speed of Hollywood gossip. To be fair, though, this was a far cry from gossip. In addition to our friends informing one another, our temples entire congregation had been notified through an email blast, and the collective response was one of sincere concern from a deeply caring community. Everyone recognized the randomness of the event, and because it happened so close to the temple where many of them sent their children to school, they also recognized how easily something like this could happen to them.

Again, there but for the grace of God

Whats inherent in that statement, though, is something I have grappled with from the very beginning: What role, if any, did some omnipotent being play in all of this? Did God really have anything to do with the accident? Which leads to several other equally unanswerable questions: Are there really any accidents, or do things happen for a reason? Is this all some sort of life lesson that we should be learning from a very bad thing happening to good people? With this kind of event, its unrealistic to not at least contemplate the big question of Why? even while simultaneously knowing its a futile exercise. Still, sitting there in the hospital, waiting and wondering and worrying while life hung in the balance, its impossible to not be slapped in the face by it.

Regardless, it quickly became impossible to process this in solitude. The news was out there, through that initial email as well as on all the local television stations. Because of the huge circle of friends Susan has built in her life, I almost immediately began receiving calls asking what was going on, what her condition was, was she going to be okay? There was so much uncertainty, though, that I didnt know what to say other than, Its not good.

Things were far from stable, her condition as well as my emotional state. It wasnt so much what the doctors were telling me, but rather what they werent, things they were leaving out, details and prognoses I still dont know and am probably better off never knowing. There was inside knowledge, that awful truth, and then there was me, blissfully ignorant to it all.

I dont blame the doctors for keeping their secrets. I already had enough to worry about that was real, never mind working myself into a state of panic over possibilities. It would be too easy to spin myself crazy indulging in all the mights of the situation (if she survives this, she might then be faced with thatthe thats being paralysis, brain damage, etc.). So not knowing the possibilities was a layer of protection necessary to deal with the immediate, to focus on the present.