It was definitely not the greatest week ever but in reality it could have been a lot worse! As most of you already know, we were in a pretty terrifying car accident Thursday morning. I'll spare you all the details - mainly because I don't want to relive all of them - but since Chloe was out of school, we were on our way to Warsaw/Sedalia to take care of some personal business. Bad idea, definitely. Next time we will listen to my 'gut', because I had a weird feeling that morning. I told Jerry about my feeling as we were pulling out of our driveway. Omen or Ironic? Whatever it was, never was I expecting that less than 20 minutes to our destination, we would loose control of our Explorer and end up in a ditch on the opposite side of the road, facing the way we were coming from and laying on our side.
It all happened really fast, yet my brain will play it in slow motion for me several times a day. I remember fish tailing and screaming at Jerry, hitting the ditch on the passenger front, seeing snow fly, seeing everything in the car getting thrown about, the coming to a stop and looking down at Jerry. Then hearing a terrifying screaming and crying from the backseat, my heart stopped and I jumped into action. I remember fighting to release the seat belt and then landing on Jerry. After a quick look over, making sure everyone was okay, with Jerry's help I was finally able to climb out of the car, making room for him to get the kids unbuckled and hand them out to me. Jaxen slept through the whole thing!
Thank God, everyone was okay and there was a house really close by, with a really nice lady who let us come in to keep the kids warm. She was a Great Grandmother with young grandchildren so she had toys for them to play with, she read books to them to keep them occupied and she knew exactly which channel had to best cartoons! I owe that old lady a lot and the kids loved her. She gave us the peace of mind that my kids were warm and safely away from the road, giving them time to be kids and not worry about what just happened.
Everything else kind of ran together, a lot of things happened all at once. Had to deal with the EMT's - who looked over all three kids and put my mind at easy, especially with Jaxen because he's the one who can't tell me what hurts. Talked and filled out the accident report with 3 Highway Patrol Troopers and a Cass County Sheriff. Dealt with the tow truck drivers - who knew my sister through a friend of a friend and towed the Explorer to Mom and Dad's and knew where they lived because they had been there before! And I had to call someone to come and get us. . . Thank God for Joanna and Caleb! They were a life-saver.
I could sit here and tell you a ton of conversations that I've had with Jerry and the kids, both before and after the accident, that would make you believe in miracles. But I think maybe they are too good to believe. But I will tell you I have a pretty profound 5-year-old. Chloe was SO worried about the car and not having one because it was broken. So worried about it that she cried and cried - not because we just wrecked but because we broke the car. It took a little convincing that I didn't care about the car and that the only thing I cared about was her and her brothers. And I thank God that none of them were hurt. And like a light bulb going off, she looked me square in the eye and told me that God was hugging them in their car seats because he didn't want them to get hurt. When I agreed whole hearted with her, she told me that God squeezed them really tight. Guardian Angels were in the backseat with my kids, there is no way they weren't.
Jerry and I are okay physically. We both have muscle stiffness in our shoulder/back. My hips and knee feels like they are out of alignment. . .but getting better everyday. Jerry's wrist is sore and I think he cracked (or at least badly bruised) a few ribs. Emotionally, Jerry is upset with himself for losing control, aggravated that he wrecked our only vehicle. Of course, he's beating himself up because I do not feel any frustration towards him - just happy, that he's okay and we all walked away from it. I was lucky he was there, I don't think I could have physically gotten myself and the kids out of the vehicle if he wasn't there. And I could care less about the car. I'm having a hard time getting the accident out of my head, it's on repeat. When I close my eyes to sleep, I can still feel the car fish tailing, I can still hear Chloe screaming, I can still see the fear in Jerry's eyes when the car came to a stop, I can still hear Jerry telling me to turn off the engine, I can still feel my heart race when I think about Jerry handing me Jaxen and his car seat, I can still see a the tow truck tipping the Explorer back on to it's tires, I can still see the state troopers removing Chloe and Jacob's car seats from the car, I can still see the tow truck drivers cleaning up the broken glass off the ground. It's all still really fresh in my mind and it makes it hard to sleep but it also makes it real easy to count my blessings. . .
