For about 15 months, Sadie Raymond looked deeply inward, at her wound, beyond the scar tissue used to ease her pain.
Seeking the words for her first and only book, she typed late at night with a glass of wine, her thoughts shifting from appreciation to sadness, from the miracle of her son, Corbin Raymond, who defied the odds and survived a car crash two years ago, to the painful and long road back that’s still not finished.
She had a book signing Sunday at C.C. Tomatoes, outside in the back, with a chill in the air combining with the warmth of a heater.
She sat side-by-side with Corbin, now 19, personalizing messages inside the book cover to a community of hundreds in the Boscawen and Penacook areas, some of whom said they read the book in one night, unable to put it down.
Entitled, “121 Days,” it refers to the amount of time Corbin spent at Boston Children’s Hospital and a rehabilitation center in the Granite State after the Fourth of July crash in 2018.
“Honestly, I started therapy because of this,” Sadie said by phone, before Sunday’s book signing. “It was difficult and it took me so long because I had to reread the posts and feel it all over again and put myself back into those shoes.”
The book details a good life, with family and barbecues and holiday fun. It covers the strength and courage of Corbin, who suffered a fractured spine, broken collarbone, broken facial bones, two broken shoulder blades, fractured ribs and skull fractures.
His recovery remains startling. Sadie is home with him full time, leading his comeback, hoping one day soon her son will go back to school, drive a car, live on his own.
Other stories surfaced. Corbin’s cousin, Tanna Valliere, was in the car with two friends. Police said speed caused the car to go airborne, crashing into trees and seriously injuring Corbin.
Valliere held his cousin’s head up to counter the gurgling sound he heard, a sign that blood was perhaps affecting Corbin’s breathing. He wrapped himself and Corbin in a blanket while the Jaws of Life cut through steel, spilling glass all over them.
Valliere received the first-ever Civilian Lifesaver Award, given at the annual Fire Service and EMS event last year. “He’s basically the same person,” Valliere, smiling, told me at Sunday’s event.
More than anything, though, the book is a mother’s journey through hell. Sadie had always juggled time and space in her life, through four children, a divorce, studying nursing in school and bartending at C.C.’s.
And this. The life-changing car crash that happened while she was hosting her annual July 4th party. Corbin was going tubing with friends.
Since then, this high-octane woman with the blinding smile has become a full-time caregiver, a public relations expert, a blogger and, now, an author.
She had been writing an informative and thoughtful diary on CaringBridge during those early days, explaining the awful prognosis, logging medical updates, keeping a strong face.
“People were getting excited to read them,” said Corbin, quiet yet affable. He had read two chapters by Sunday, then, smiling, added, “I lived it. I know it.”
Sadie’s journal gained a following. Parents could relate, knowing this could have happened to any of them and, perhaps, had.
“My mom pushed me to write the book, thinking it could help others,” Sadie said. “I was hesitant. I was not an English major whatsoever. I was in school for nursing. I had just graduated with my prerequisites, ready to enroll when the crash happened.”
A friend introduced her to Todd Civin, an author from Massachusetts who’s spent much of his career working on writing projects with people who have faced giant challenges.
He was at C.C.’s on Sunday. He said he had played different roles. Writer. Coach. Editor. Spiritual guru.
“I enhanced her words,” Civin told me. “I asked her to expand her thoughts.”
And she did. Raymond called herself a private person, yet she opened up mightily for her book. With her son in the hospital, possibly dying, Raymond was in the middle of a breakup with her boyfriend, with whom she shares a little boy, Grayson, who’s now 4, and who was due to move out two days after the crash.
Raymond hit her ex, admitting, “I lost my temper and got physical. He did nothing. His hands were on the wheel and I went into shock.”
Later, she drove her car into a concrete barrier in the Concord Hospital parking lot. Then, moments later, she did it again.
“I had trouble calming down,” Raymond said.
From there comes the good stuff, following a dire prognosis, surgeries, occupational and physical therapy, a lot of praying and 121 days away from home.
And a book.
Raymond would sit down nights at 10 and cry and write, cry and write. Civin said he’d nudge her a bit, nicely yet firmly, telling me, “We had to go at Sadie’s pace, but she had to remember things before she went to write it. She got frustrated at times. She didn’t think it was moving forward fast enough.”
Raymond finished the book a few months ago. In a video, she’s shown opening her first box of books, all crisp and smelling like new books. The writing is punchy and detailed.
A sample: “There is no worse feeling in the world than seeing your child bloody, broken, and fighting for life and not being able to take their pain away.
“I felt so utterly helpless. I tried to bargain with any higher power even if I wasn’t sure what I believed. I would literally give my own life to save his and make him whole again.”
Raymond said she had writer’s block now and then. More like pauses and delays, the subject matter’s force stopping her in her tracks.
Then she’d continue, writing through blurry eyes.
“It was not only sad cries,” Raymond said. “There were some happy cries too.”