So long, farewell....for a few days

I know no one reads this yet and I know I have not written a lot on here. Just in case someone does happen upon it though, I will be leaving town/state/country for a few days starting Friday. My mom and I are heading to LONDON!!! I am excited but scared as heck. I don't know how I will survive 12 hours on the plane (split into a 5 hour and 7 hour flight!). So, until next week or so....ta ta!

In an Instant

This is not really the way I thought I would start with our first post, but it is something that has been on my mind for a few days and something I felt I needed to write down.

Last Monday-Labor Day, Randy's second cousins wife had a parasailing accident. I won't go into all the details but the family was on a little vacation with some friends. She was on a rock, watching her children on the boat and taking pictures of all the fun. One of her sons went up in the parachute, got off the rock, and some crazy wind gust or something came up and pushed the parachute down. In the process of it coming down, it hit the wife just so that it knocked her off her feet, threw her in the air, and slammed her headfirst into the rock. Luckily, there were people close by to help and get her the immediate help she needed. She was life flighted to the hospital where she underwent surgery. She has no lasting effects that they can tell of and the only "damage" they can see is her memory of the accident. She cannot remember a thing about it, but other than that, a miracle occurred and she is fine. She was even let out of the hospital that Thursday-just four days after the whole ordeal!

We went and visited her and her family last Sunday and dropped them off some dessert to go along with their dinner. When we saw her, my heart just broke. Her face is all swollen up and she has a huge incision down the left side of her head where they inserted a metal plate and had to staple and stitch everything back together. A place she will have a scar to remind her of that day her whole life. She was very coherent and able to talk with us and we heard more about the accident from the family.

As we were talking with them, they also told us about the day before on the houseboat they were staying on. The wife had helped one of the younger girls in the middle of the night with getting back to bed after waking up for a while. As we heard them tell about the night proceeding the accident, all I could think was "and then THIS happened." It just hit me so hard how quickly things can change in your life and sometimes very dramatically. One day you are having a great time with your family and friends, the next you are being rushed to a hospital fighting for your life and having to deal with the aftermath of a terrible accident. It made me appreciate life and every safe day we have a little more.

I feel terrible that this has happened, to anyone but especially someone we know very personally. I hope that I can remember how I felt that day and always appreciate what time we have together on this earth. That is a hard thing for me to do with screaming and fighting kids all day long, but somehow I hope her accident has changed me for the better and made me more grateful for what I do have.