Blessings

August 30, 2014

In an earlier post, I mentioned that it took me a while to get used to moving from our home in KS to a new one in MO.  We've been here for about 6 weeks now and over the last couple of weeks have had a lot of things happen.  For the most part our days go on quite normally, though it's busy; Max in middle school with all of his activities, Elise in 5th grade and all of her activities, and our jobs and our new callings.

Last Saturday started out like any other Saturday except that my nieces were sleeping over and Nate and Max had a football practice.  While the girls were sliding down the stairs, shortly after practice was to have started, Nate showed up with Max, who was extremely pale and complaining that he felt a little queasy.  I looked after Max and got him resting and Nate went back to practice.  An hour and a half later, the nieces had gone home and Elise and I were just doing some Saturday chores.

Suddenly I heard tires screech, a gigantic thump and crash, and silence.  I ran to the window and saw a car in our driveway facing out as if it were about to turn out of the driveway onto the highway.  Then I thought, I wonder where Nate is going.  And immediately thought, well that's not our car, so I wonder what that car is doing.  But then it dawned on me that the car was smashed up a little and there had been a wreck.  (This all took seconds to think but a long time to write.) I ran to grab my phone to call 911 and at the same time slip on my shoes.  As I headed out the door to run to the end of the driveway, I heard Elise, in a panicked voice, say: "I think that's our car, Mom!".  She was right but I was still running to the car, calling 911 at the same time.  At the same time the driver and passenger of the other car is also running toward our car with Nate in it.

Before the emergency workers could even get there, the neighbors were out cleaning up debris and slowing traffic; Trevor and his father-in-law, Steve, showed up quickly too - Steve offered to take my kids to his house; a random man who drives tow-trucks for a living, who lives just up the highway a bit, stopped on his way to a job to see if we need help (which I thought was kind of him because he lost the job that he was responding to to help us).  While I got the kids off with Steve, Trevor helped work through paperwork and the look-over by the paramedics of Nate.  

Thankfully, all three people were wearing their seat-belts and the paramedics determined that none of them needed to go to the hospital.  But the paramedic did tell Nate that he would feel like he'd been smashed in a vice, or that he'd worked out for 3 hours at the gym, or that he'd ...he kept coming up with scenarios about sore muscles. He was very good at helping us all to laugh a little.

Notice that the football made it unscathed.  ;-)

 Some things we noticed in the aftermath: Nate was making his turn into our driveway when he was rear-ended at around 50 mph.  But the driver swerved a little to the right so that only the passenger side of the car's trunk is completely shoved to the wheels, leaving the driver's side (with the gas tank) still basically in tact - more or less.   He was spun 180 degrees into our drive missing the mailbox (not that that matters really), but it was still pretty amazing that he missed it by only about a foot, and landing him completely in the driveway so he wasn't on the highway after the wreck.  And what we realized most was that Max wasn't in the car with him.  Max had spent the night with his cousins and was feeling fine all night long, even when he left for practice.  So it was odd that he was feeling queasy right as practice started - resulting in him coming home early.  We found out (hours after the wreck) that he had jammed his finger before practice while warming up which made him feel the way he did.  And Nate initially thought about having him tough it out, but felt that he should go ahead and take him home early to rest.  Sunday I took him to the emergency room to see if his jammed finger was really broken.  They said it wasn't and put a stint on it.  But the following Wednesday the doctors called back and sent us to an orthopedic doctor because it turned out that he had broken it (or had a substantial fracture on the growth plate).  Never have I been more grateful for a broken finger (though he may not be too grateful).

I'm not sure if Max would have been hurt if he was in the car with Nate during the wreck, but I do know that I'm so thankful for a husband who follows promptings before worrying about what others may think.  That the accident happened in my front yard so that I could be there and for the fact that one car was in it's turn while the other swerved just enough.  I'm grateful for the neighbors, paramedics and family that was so close to help with tending and with emotional and physical assistance.  And mostly for the care and love and protection that was given my family at this time by Divine Providence.