God is in the Details

The car door slammed on my legs, and locked so I couldn't open it. Little did I know just how lucky I was ... I merely screamed, tried to honk the horn, pounded on the window, after watching the black sedan squeal tires while leaving the scene.

It was 10:25 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012, and I was going to church. So I could make the door before the service started, I parked on the street. The sedan turned into the alley just across the street, and at first I thought he (or she) was going to church too, then the car started backing up, to turn around. Whether the driver saw my car, or me, is a mystery. At least to me. But I had opened the door and put my feet on the ground so I could hurry out as soon as the sedan cleared. The sedan slammed into my car hitting the door about six inches from the edge, the rest of the bumper damaged the quarter panel behind the driver's door.

My hands shook as I dialed 911, making several mistakes while trying to hit the right buttons. The operator was just as calm as they are on TV shows, and I mentally compared the several minutes I would have to wait to giving birth and decided I could do it. But I still screamed a bit, and pounded on the window, some of it from anger, most of it from pain.

A minute before the EMS ambulance pulled up with two hunky firefighter-paramedics, two women heard me and asked if they could help. "I can't open the door," I said. One of the women, who identified herself as a doctor later, opened the door from the outside. Such relief ... I can't begin to describe it. The EMS guys lifted me onto a stretcher and put me in the ambulance, and even though the hospital was less than a mile away, they checked my vitals, started an IV, and after some questions, offered me morphine. (First I called Art to have him find Marvin and bring him to the ER ... holding one finger up to the paramedic who was asking me questions! ...That's me, always trying to be in control!)

The legs were not broken and now, 17 days later, the swelling is mostly gone, although the color of my skin is darker and there are bruise scars that are likely not going away.

I relived the incident while trying to go to sleep for two or three nights. I thought of what could have happened. If I had been a few seconds earlier or later, no accident. If I had been standing outside the car, the sedan would have crushed my hips and upper legs ... perhaps killed me. If the sedan had hit the door in the middle, my legs would have been broken.

I'm not thinking about that at night anymore, but perhaps God was in the details of this accident, just like a near-death experience my friend Beth Elly Baumgartner posted on Facebook this morning:
OMG!! Driving to work this AM on I 75 a car came out of nowhere, did a 180 across 3 lanes of traffic right into my lane! Luckily I swerved to miss it during rush hour!! Lucky to be alive right now!!! Wow I'm still shaking!!"

Beth is a teacher in Cincinnati, OH, and a mom, wife and great human being. While it's bad theology to say God was responsible for saving my legs, or helping Beth avoid an accident, I do believe God might give a nudge now and then. God does have a plan for each of us, and if we're really paying attention, we might actually see it and follow that path! May God be your details as well. Happy Leap Year Day.

Home

"Home is where you hang your hat." While Marvin's been saying that for decades, I never thought he really meant it, because I thought I'd be in a wheelchair before we moved to town. Well, things are changing. As one gets older, little things are a nuisance to do, like driving to town all the time, and especially at night when my vision is not as good. When I gave up choir a couple of years ago, it nearly broke my heart. But not a tear was shed, at least not by me. A few choir members still ask me to come back, but they aren't crying!

Anyway, Marvin has finally come around to thinking somewhat like me ... his gardening days are shrinking. Most of it this year will be on the deck. The hard, backbreaking work he's always been able and willing to do is a lot more difficult than before. But he's not crying either. We both see it, at ages 71 and 73, as a part of life, getting older.

So sometime in the next year or so, we will probably be moving to Rock Island...when we find the right house with a big enough yard for a workshop for him, and hopefully an office for me. It won't be as remote as this unique home in which we live now ... out of sight from people ... but we're looking for at least a ravine where deer will travel by and where we can feed the birds. So my family can count on being asked to help us move!

We won't have the pond at our back door (pictured), or the 900 square-foot deck, the great view, the privacy so great we don't need curtains, or so many precious things that I couldn't list them all.

What about the cats, you say? Well, that's why we need a big enough house ... natch. Mama can live in the workshop, and Sam, Boxy, Oscar, Spook, Birdy, and ..... ta ta ta ... Jack can stay in the house. Just don't tell anyone we have that many cats, or we'll be like that poor woman in Geneseo with the 10 rescued dogs ... fighting with officials and neighbors.

But I will be back in choir ... and we can go out to eat at night without squinting. I can't wait!