Life is scary!

First, an amazing update on the woman I mentioned in my last blog post. Katie has suffered no permanent damage from her cardiac arrest and lack of oxygen! They did install a defibrillator, and she could possibly go home tomorrow, 5/19. How amazing is that? God truly did an awesome thing for her.

So, I had posted the other night about her, asking for prayers, and had tried to write a post entitled the same as this one. But I couldn't get it worded just right, and wound up just writing a short one asking for prayers for her. 

Then Wednesday morning, I got a call every mother dreads to hear. My middle daughter, C, had been in a car wreck. Thanking the Lord every second, she was ok. She had been driving her grandpa's car, and lost control going around a curve. She went off the road, actually slid sideways into one of those metal carports, hit the van parked underneath the carport, bounced off it and came to rest against two of the poles of the carport. I won't embarrass her by posting pics, but it was really strange. If someone tried, I don't think they could have managed to do what she did. Her grandpa's car was a total loss, and unfortunately it only had liability insurance, so since the wreck was her fault, insurance will not cover any repairs to the car, only to the man's van and carport. And yes, C, I heard you when you said you weren't going THAT fast. Still don't believe you. :) Thankfully we knew the man, a very sweet older gentleman, and he was as gracious as he could be. He told C several times, "I'm so sorry this happened to you". How many people would say that when they walked out of their house and saw their van and carport tore up?

Her grandpa was so forgiving when she called him. All he said was "I don't care about the car, I'm just glad you are ok". Amen to that. When she left the house that morning, I told her I loved her. That could have been the last time I ever got to tell her that. How scary is that? We never know what's going to happen when we walk out the door (or even inside our own house, as Katie could tell you!) Make every second count.

So, Wednesday was filled with phone calls, getting the car towed back to the house, going by the insurance office to file a claim, and running other errands. And then on the way home I got another phone call...

My dad was in the ER again with his heart. He was just in there last week with atrial fibrillation, and they had to give him medicine to stabilize it. Now it's doing it again. All of his tests from last week came back, doctor said he's as healthy as a horse. Other than his heart randomly taking wild vacations from beating regularly. Who knows when or if it will do that and stop altogether. That terrifies me. My dad is my rock. Whenever anything happens where I need help, he's the first one I think to ask. Even before my husband. (sorry Dave!) I don't take him for granted though. Well, I try not to. He's the hardest working man I've ever met, and even though he is 68 and "retired", he can still outwork a man 1/3 his age. He grew up on a dairy/tobacco farm, where they had morning milking chores before school, and worked in the tobacco field until dark after school. He would remind me of this when I was a kid, how he had to get up at 4:00 am to go milk the cows then walk 1/2 mile out to the road to catch the bus. (About this time I would interrupt and say, yeah I know, in the snow and uphill both ways). I appreciate now what he did. It instilled a work ethic in him that can't be beat. It's all he has ever known. (Don't tell him I posted his pic, shhh)

So, yeah, life is scary. This week I could have lost my daughter and my dad on the same day. That's hard to think about.