"The Car Crash" and walking away from it

"Do the best you can through these years, but whatever else you do, cherish that role that is so uniquely yours and for which heaven itself sends angels to watch over you and your little ones. Mothers, we acknowledge and esteem your faith in every footstep. Please know that it is worth it then, now, and forever."

-Jeffrey R. Holland
(read it in full here)

I read that quote on nienie dialogues a few days ago and it brought to mind a time in my life when things got scary.  And we should have been seriously hurt.
And we weren't.

I told you today that I would tell you a grand story.  I remembered to grab the CD of pictures that my Brent-dad took and gave to me.

It's been what... 6 years since I've looked at these pictures?

I'm feeling a little tender and raw after looking at them.

One summer morning my brother, Bill, and his wife, Jessica, and their two small children came to visit us while we were living in Vernal, Utah.
We didn't get to see much of them so I was happy to have them there.
My ex husband, who at the time of this story was still my husband, without the ex on it, had gone to work before daylight.
The rest of us woke up at a fairly early time, but not too bad.
Jessica and I decided we needed donuts for breakfast.
So I got dressed, a fact I would come to be grateful for and loathe all at the same time in a mere ten minutes time, and we gathered up all of our kids.  Bill opted to stay at the house and wait for us.
We had 6 kids under the age of 6 years between the two of us.  I happened to drive a suburban so we had enough seat belts for the brood, but we ended up giving Cali's car seat (she was barely two years old I think) to her cousin Brenna who was younger than she was.  We put Cali in the middle seat of the third row with a regular seat belt.

We strapped Sam in his infant carrier down and all the other girls buckled up.

We headed off.

It was a typical Vernal morning.  A steady flow of traffic was on the highway that lead through the middle of town, in one end and out the other. I lived on the outskirts of town and the bakery in the grocery store that we were headed to was on the other side of town so we got on that highway and headed in.

Have you ever seen Vernal's main intersection?  Where Highway 40 intersects with Vernal Ave?  Where all the banks and cute shops and a few restaurants are nestled?

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If you look you can see two lanes of travel for both directions, plus a turning lane in the middle.  At the time of morning we were driving, the curbs on both sides were filled completely with parked cars.

Right as we passed Vernal Ave into this section of road I noticed a white Chevy Avalanche pick up truck  driving towards us in the opposite lanes.  We were both in the lanes of traffic next to the turning lane. 

I don't know why I took notice of this truck.  There was just... something.  As I looked at this pick up again I noticed it started to slide into the turn lane, but I realized it was more of a drift than an actual moving over and the thought struck me, "he's going to come into my lane."  And then I thought of Cali who was only in a seat belt and not in a car seat.  It only took a second for these thoughts to process and in that second I knew I was right.  I had no time to warn my family. 

Time seemed to be going so slow.  Each second was very clear and very precise.  I knew I had a car in the lane next to me, and I had cars behind me.  There was no where for me to go.

I remembered learning in driver's ed that people get seriously hurt in car accidents when they tense up, so as the truck entered my lane, I let go of the steering wheel to keep from bracing against it, in hopes that I wouldn't be seriously hurt.

Some of the details have become muted over the years, but I still remember with such clarity that moment of impact.
I once saw an accident happen, and it happened in a flash.
And yet, when I was in this one, I remember ever movement in that flash.

I remember the airbag going off in front of me, and then the car tipped up and I was looking at the sky and the windshield cracked all over. 

But then the next thing I new the suburban was back on all four tires and I was looking at my crumbled hood, and the white pick up beyond that.

My throat, nose, and eyes were burning from the smoke and chemicals from the deploy of the airbag.

And for a split second everything was dead silent.

But then I heard hissing.  And crying.

I called 911 and was told that there were other accidents that morning and someone would get to us as quickly as they could.  I told them we had kids.  It really didn't take that long for them to come.  Maybe 5 minutes was all.  I looked into the back of my car at the crying kids and couldn't see Cali. 

Cali!

"Where's Cali?"
They all just cried and looked at me.
So I yelled with stress and fear, "Where's Cali?!"

"She's right here, Mom.  She's on the floor."

I might have started crying then.

I tried to get of the car but my door wouldn't open.  Jessica couldn't get out of hers either.
I determined that I need to crawl into the back with the kids and try those doors, but as I began to pull myself out from underneath the steering wheel, a man opened the back door and started pulling my children out.

Casidee kept yelling, "is this real?  Is this real Mom?"
"Yes Cas, this is real."

I called to Cali to come to me and she did.
She was bleeding on her face but seemed to be calm.  Or in shock.
I found as I climbed out of the car that people who were working in the banks and the shops there on that little stretch of road had come out and were on the road taking my children. 
Speaking soothingly to them, hugging them, leading them to the sidewalk where they sat and held them in their laps.
And all I could think was the poor man who had opened the door for us was holding Cali, and he was going to get blood on his nice shirt.

I called my ex husband and told him we'd been in an accident and I scared him.  Apparently I was rambling like a lunatic and I kept repeating myself. 

The paramedics showed up and started assessing us.  They put Cali in a car seat from the ambulance and put me on a stretcher, but kept Cali close to me and we held hands, though I couldn't see her because she was sitting at the top of my head.

At this point I was glad I was dressed, for all of the people.  But when the paramedic asked me if my jeans were my favorite?  Because he was going to have to cut them.  They were.  He did, he slit them clear up to my thigh.  He needed to see my legs, and if there was any damage there.  I wasn't so happy with the thought that I had put them on after that.

I realized that my children were hurt and scared and I wasn't going to be able to be there for them because I was hurt myself.
I handed my phone to one of the medics and begged him to call my neighbor for me.  To tell her we needed people who the kids knew to come to the hospital and be with them so they wouldn't feel alone and scared.

I watched them put Cas on a stretcher and I bawled.  She was just too little to be on that big stretcher.

Things did calm down after that.  They allowed me to have most of my children in the same ER room with me.  Wonderful friendly neighbors showed up to follow the girls to various x-ray rooms so they wouldn't be alone.  They held their hands and spoke sweetly to them.

Turns out the worst injured was Cali.  She needed stitches in her lip and thigh, and had broken her right arm, right under the shoulder.
And that was as bad as the injuries got.

They admitted Cali and Casidee into the hospital to watch them.  Casidee kept complaining of stomach pains and they wanted to watch for internal injuries, but in reality I think she just had nerves.

More neighbors and friends came to the hospital and brought toys and food and flowers.
One sweet lady brought us the donuts that we never ended up getting.

And the bishopric gave me a blessing.  This is where the quote comes in .
I don't remember all of the blessing, but I remember that he said, "you were not alone today.  Angels were with you."

And I believe it 100%.  The doctors and paramedics were amazed.  They kept saying it was a miracle that no one else was hurt from the crash.  They couldn't believe that we were all walking away from it.

I was told that the engine block should have ended up in my lap.
But it didn't.
It stopped just before it would have.

Luckily we didn't have to stay over night at the hospital.  We left really late, but the doctor's felt the girls just needed to be home.

So I love that quote from Elder Holland.
So much that I'm going to put it here again.

"Do the best you can through these years, but whatever else you do, cherish that role that is so uniquely yours and for which heaven itself sends angels to watch over you and your little ones. Mothers, we acknowledge and esteem your faith in every footstep. Please know that it is worth it then, now, and forever."
We ended up on the front page of the local newspaper.  We did, after all, close down Vernal's main intersection for a morning.
When I saw the picture on the front, with the suburban wrecked in the background, and myself there on a stretcher with my children around me...
it made me nauseous.
So I bought a copy.  I still have it.

And I will never forget how the Lord was there with us that day.

I believe in guardian angels.

country lessons and city life

I'm a city girl.

Hands down without a doubt.

I've lived in the country so I can say that.  Truly.

Meet Quincy, Washington.

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Obviously this isn't the whole town, but this is a good representation of what it was like to live there. 

Farm Country.

Farm country as in, when it's school spirit day at the High School, and the school colors are green and yellow, everyone drives their John Deere tractors to school. Seriously.  It was pretty cool actually.

Farm country, where 4-H is bigger than FBLA.

Farm country, where you give directions by saying "turn at the first light" or "turn at the second light", because there were only two intersections with lights in the town. 

Where directions also included, "turn off the paved road {you might be a redneck if #63}, take a left at the first barn, and it's the second house with a white fence."

Farm country, where it's impossible to stay clean from the knee down because nothing off the main roads is paved.

Farm country, where the nearest... anything, was an hour away.

Farm country, where the people are there for each other because they know and understand each other.

Farm country, where the produce is fresh and the best you've ever had.  I will throw my opinion in and say that Washington potatoes are better than Idaho potatoes.

Farm country, where, even though I can now say with out a doubt that I am a city girl, I'm glad I got to spend some time with it.  Talk about finding your roots among home grown people.

I think of my time in Quincy with a smile on my face.  The stars were bright and I learned that there is nothing sweeter than the smell of rain mixing with the scent of onions growing in a field. I know when the alfalfa needs cutting by the onslaught of sneezing.  Also, I'm not afraid to admit how much I love a good mud bogging competition.  How grateful I am that my kids learned what it is to eat cherries right off the tree (don't strip the branches when you pick them though) and strawberries right from the patch.

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Some of my favorite people still live in Quincy, and I will never forget them or the life lessons I learned from them.

I remember driving home to Salt Lake, arriving in the valley in the dark of night, when Casidee (only five years old) gasped, "Mom! Look at all those lights!"
"That's the city, Cas."
And every time we drove past lights she would exclaim, "there's more city! And more over there! Look at all of this city!"

My heart ached at that.  I think that was the first indication for me that even though I loved the country, I missed the city more. I was sad that my girls didn't know city life.

From Quincy I moved to Vernal, Utah. 

It wasn't farm country.  But it was still country.

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The roads and most of the driveways were paved.  You could still see neighbors despite the fields (unlike Quincy where the fields were too vast).  And Vernal has a Wal-mart (sad, I know).  That means not having to drive an hour for errands.

When I first moved to Vernal I lived in a mobile home while waiting for the rental to become available (thankfully it was only a month).

That was an experience.  There were hay bales around the base of the home for "insulation". The shower handles didn't work.  There was a hole in the wall in the hallway outside of the bathroom that exposed the shower pipes.  There were handles put on these pipes and you would have to run back and forth from the shower where the water was flowing to the hallway where you could adjust the temp of the water.  If the water changed while you were in the shower you had to yell for someone out in the hallway to help you adjust it.

I'm not kidding.

But once again I found that some of my favorite people lived in Vernal. I love them still.

Vernal is the most beautiful place I have ever lived.

Vernal has strong unity, amazing parades, and no rush hour traffic.

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Between Quincy and Vernal I spent six years of my life with no rush hour.  That part was bliss.

But there's something about living in the city.

I was downtown yesterday for a training and took this picture.

The old architecture just swallows me up.  I love being surrounded by it. 

I love the tall buildings and the diversity.

I went to lunch in an Italian bistro that had exposed heat ducts and was packed to the brim with people in business suits, people in jeans and sandals and dread locks, and two elderly gentlemen in sweaters.

It was nestled in next to a fresh seafood market.

There was a city park full of green grass and trees.  An island against all the cement.  It was the perfect balance.  In the summer this park homes a giant Farmer's Market every Saturday where you can buy fresh locally grown produce, and wares from local vendors.

I love the personality of cities.

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I saw the Petunia the Pig statue, a group of kids eating sack lunches in a courtyard during a field trip, and a small cafe selling waffles and fries with tables to eat at on the sidewalk under an awning.

And all of this was within a five minute walk.

I ate lunch with five people I've never met before, who were a part of the training with me.  They all knew each other, but were so welcoming to me, talking to me, asking me questions, making me feel welcome and included.  Home grown people live in the city too.

And the city is where I want to be.  Even with the rush hour.