HERE'S THE POST I'VE BEEN DRAGGING MY FEET ON...

Okay. Here's the deal. Here's what I've been avoiding. The THING. IT. Here's why I've been posting light-hearted, happy, kinda sorta funny stuff. I don't want to go to the place in my head and heart where I can "let go" about what happened to Em. I try to avoid drama as much as possible and that's why I'm just going to stick to the facts...the trauma without the drama, if you will. Let's see how that goes.

Emily was involved in an auto accident the Friday before Thanksgiving. She was at a standstill waiting for the light to change when a young man (18 yrs old) reached down for his cell phone, accelerated, and hit her stopped car while traveling 70 mph. Her car traveled a city block. The jaws of life had to cut her out. The car is totaled. Had her children been in the car, which they were supposed to be, they would not have survived. Had she not suffered her miscarriage some weeks ago, she would have been 5 months pregnant. Big "ifs". Incredibly big "ifs".

She suffered multiple fractures-in her neck (yes, Em has a broken neck-but the news is good), her second rib (fractured in the back) and she had 25 staples in her head and the E.R. physician still managed to miss a few spots that needed sutured, including a HUGE GAPING WOUND at the occipitocranial junction of her head. Nice. Her spinal cord is intact. She is still suffering from her concussion and memory is a consistent problem. At night she gets to choose between sleeping on the side of her lacerated scalp or broken bones. But she's alive to make the choice. SCORE!

Most of the time, she and I are laughing. Sometimes we are weeping in gratitude and awe of the tender mercies of the Lord. The rest of the time I spend burying an incredible amount of emotion---swallowing all of the guilt for not being here when it happened, not being able to take her pain from her, sublimating my anger at a young man who, after breaking my daughter's neck due to his freaking cell phone continued to text his friends while sitting outside of her hospital room (I know, I know, he's young and was probably freaking out), and caving to the unfathomable, almost crippling level of gratitude that I carry with me constantly...CONSTANTLY...

I cannot take a step or a breath without being acutely aware that I have, right now on this earth, all four of my children with me. All four. I'm also keenly aware of how perfectly fragile and fleeting these mortal relationships are. But I am comforted in knowing this: that this is not the end and if I would have lost my daughter that day, I would not have LOST her. And this is all I can write without crippling and inconsolable tears, once again, of gratitude-to a most kind and gracious Heavenly Father and most noble and loving Savior that allows for families to be eternal and never-ending and whose power transcends, without question, 18-year-old boys with cell phones who some may think have the power of separating us from our loved ones, but who have no power whatsoever...