This week I was at Beth's house, and I fell, in the basement. I stepped off the next-to-last step, thinking it was the bottom one. That caused me to have a 16 inch drop, instead of 8 inches, jamming my knee. My leg (the same leg that was broken in a former car wreck, and has a metal rod with screws) twisted under me, throwing me off balance. I fell to the floor with all the grace of a dead chichen being hurled across the room. I just lay there, dreading to move my leg. Beth's friend, Crystal, came in a few minutes later, and found me. I scooted up the stairs on my seat, to the main level of the house, and slid across the floor. Crystal helped me get on the couch. She gave me my cell phone and the TV control, and had to go back outside, where her children were in the pool. When Beth got home about 30 minutes later, she called Sam, and they shuttled me off to the emergency room, where I was tended to promptly. At the doctor's exam, it was realized that all the pain was coming from my knee, so she sent me off to exray with a nice young fellow. He was very kind, and got the pictures done quickly. ( I felt like I was taking his picture, because I couldn't straighten my leg, and I had on a hospital gown.) On the way back, I offered to open the doors, and he said, "No mame, You'll have to go to the other hospital in this town if you want to work. This hospital is a full service place."
After the exrays were read, the doctor came back and told me no bones were broken, but that one of the screws might be just a little loose. She gave me a foam rubber wrap to immoblize my leg, and dismissed me to go home.
So, how much money do you have to pay to find out you have a few loose screws? Any of my friends could have told me that for free!
Monday, June 30, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
INLAWS OR OUTLAWS?
Since my children have grown up, they have brought me 3 more children. And I don't mean grandchildren. (Grandchildren are a class in themselves.) What I'm talking about are the in-laws.
Yancey and Sam are my daughters' husbands. And I love them like my own sons. They are both laid back personalities, which is a perfect match for my 'type-A' daughters. I gave a pretty good description of Yancey in my post on becoming a grandparent. He and Fonda have been married for 15 years. I've also mentioned Sam in a former post. He is very talented in music, and has a memory out of this world. He enjoys knowing various and unusual facts about the world. He also used to say he would like to work at the zoo! (I haven't heard about that for a while. But he has created a bird aviary in the back yard.) He enjoys working on the computer, and wants to build he own. He is the one who set me up with my e-mail.
Rejhaun is engaged to my son, Austin. They live far away, and we don't see them often. But she writes me or calls me every few weeks and they are doing okay. She graduated from college, Summa Cum Laude, with a degree in criminal justice. She is a good cook, and also a type-A woman. I enjoy her company. Austin's laid back personality goes well with her. We're looking forward to the wedding.
So I think they are all IN-laws. All it takes to remain IN-laws in my book, is to keep loving and respecting my children. If they ever stop doing that, they will probably be on the OUTS with me. I guess that would make them OUT-laws, wouldn't it?
They have all become mine to claim. I treat them like my own, praying for them and holding them accountable. I love them all. We'll just wait awhile and see what Cassie brings home! I bet we'll be surprised how we'll love him, too.
Yancey and Sam are my daughters' husbands. And I love them like my own sons. They are both laid back personalities, which is a perfect match for my 'type-A' daughters. I gave a pretty good description of Yancey in my post on becoming a grandparent. He and Fonda have been married for 15 years. I've also mentioned Sam in a former post. He is very talented in music, and has a memory out of this world. He enjoys knowing various and unusual facts about the world. He also used to say he would like to work at the zoo! (I haven't heard about that for a while. But he has created a bird aviary in the back yard.) He enjoys working on the computer, and wants to build he own. He is the one who set me up with my e-mail.
Rejhaun is engaged to my son, Austin. They live far away, and we don't see them often. But she writes me or calls me every few weeks and they are doing okay. She graduated from college, Summa Cum Laude, with a degree in criminal justice. She is a good cook, and also a type-A woman. I enjoy her company. Austin's laid back personality goes well with her. We're looking forward to the wedding.
So I think they are all IN-laws. All it takes to remain IN-laws in my book, is to keep loving and respecting my children. If they ever stop doing that, they will probably be on the OUTS with me. I guess that would make them OUT-laws, wouldn't it?
They have all become mine to claim. I treat them like my own, praying for them and holding them accountable. I love them all. We'll just wait awhile and see what Cassie brings home! I bet we'll be surprised how we'll love him, too.
Sleeping Through the Process
This post is about Cassie, the baby of the family. Until she got in high school, she never caused any trouble, except when she was sleeping. When she was about 2, she came up missing. For over an hour, we looked for her. We couldn't find her in the house or yard. She had been excited about hearing the ice cream truck earlier, so we went across the block to see if anyone had seen her there. Someone on that street described a little girl like her and said she had been dragged into a car with no license, kicking and screaming. We thought, "Oh, God! The thing that we have feared has come upon us. Our child has been kidnapped!" That car and that little girl were found a half hour later, on the next block. But ours was still missing. Half the town had come to help us look for her. We had looked along the streets, and at the park. We were praying, frantic and in despair. About the time we decided to call our folks with the bad news, a young friend, Kelly, found her asleep on the top bunk with a pile of clothes pulled up over her. She had slept through the whole thing.
One Sunday evening, when she was still small, we were getting ready for church. Dad and the kids left ahead of me, and I hollered "Take Cassie with you". They said "Okay." So I finished getting myself together, and looked on the bed where Cassie had been sleeping, just to make sure that they had taken her. She was gone, so I assumed they did. When I got to church, I looked for Cassie, and she was nowhere to be seen. I asked, "Where is Cassie?" Beth said, "Dad said to leave her on the couch at home; that you would bring her." So I rushed back home, and there she was, sleeping on the couch. Again, she had slept through the whole thing.
When she was four, she was riding on the back seat of a church van, leaning up over the back of the seat in front of her, dozing. We had a head-on collision, and she came flying over the seats, getting her head crammed into the glove box. The impact broke open her skull and blood was spurting out at every heartbeat. The van caught on fire, so the man in the truck behind us dragged us out of the vehicle. I was also hurt and unconscious, so I was no help. (And I had gone with the kids to take care of them!) Cassie had emergency brain surgery to remove fragments of her brain and repair the broken skull. She walked out of that hospital in nine days! A miracle! Another bad thing that God has turned for the good.
Well, of course with all this trauma, we babied her ridiculously. And she soaked up the spoiling like a sponge. Used it to her advantage many times. She hated school from kindergarten on, but was no trouble to the teachers, until high school. Those were tumultuous days, but she made it through, revealing lovely artistic talents, and graduated. (Maybe she slept through that, too?)
Now she is in the process of breaking away from the nest. Or maybe it is us who are in the process of trying to let her go. We've been here 3 times before, but it isn't any easier with the last one through the door. It is my observation that it takes at least five years for this process to bring a person to enough maturity for someone to cut the apron strings of parenthood. (And it always feels like the kid is hacking away at them with a pair of dull scissors. Oh no, that's not the apron strings. There is too much pain! It's the heart strings!) We don't hear from her often, because she wants to 'do it herself!' If I learned anything from that car wreck when Cassie was small, it is this; God is the one who takes care of my children even if I am with them. Or if I'm not. He loves her more than I do, and he knows her better than me. He has a purpose for her life and is fully well able to finish what he started. So maybe I'll just sleep this one through, while she and God work through the process.
One Sunday evening, when she was still small, we were getting ready for church. Dad and the kids left ahead of me, and I hollered "Take Cassie with you". They said "Okay." So I finished getting myself together, and looked on the bed where Cassie had been sleeping, just to make sure that they had taken her. She was gone, so I assumed they did. When I got to church, I looked for Cassie, and she was nowhere to be seen. I asked, "Where is Cassie?" Beth said, "Dad said to leave her on the couch at home; that you would bring her." So I rushed back home, and there she was, sleeping on the couch. Again, she had slept through the whole thing.
When she was four, she was riding on the back seat of a church van, leaning up over the back of the seat in front of her, dozing. We had a head-on collision, and she came flying over the seats, getting her head crammed into the glove box. The impact broke open her skull and blood was spurting out at every heartbeat. The van caught on fire, so the man in the truck behind us dragged us out of the vehicle. I was also hurt and unconscious, so I was no help. (And I had gone with the kids to take care of them!) Cassie had emergency brain surgery to remove fragments of her brain and repair the broken skull. She walked out of that hospital in nine days! A miracle! Another bad thing that God has turned for the good.
Well, of course with all this trauma, we babied her ridiculously. And she soaked up the spoiling like a sponge. Used it to her advantage many times. She hated school from kindergarten on, but was no trouble to the teachers, until high school. Those were tumultuous days, but she made it through, revealing lovely artistic talents, and graduated. (Maybe she slept through that, too?)
Now she is in the process of breaking away from the nest. Or maybe it is us who are in the process of trying to let her go. We've been here 3 times before, but it isn't any easier with the last one through the door. It is my observation that it takes at least five years for this process to bring a person to enough maturity for someone to cut the apron strings of parenthood. (And it always feels like the kid is hacking away at them with a pair of dull scissors. Oh no, that's not the apron strings. There is too much pain! It's the heart strings!) We don't hear from her often, because she wants to 'do it herself!' If I learned anything from that car wreck when Cassie was small, it is this; God is the one who takes care of my children even if I am with them. Or if I'm not. He loves her more than I do, and he knows her better than me. He has a purpose for her life and is fully well able to finish what he started. So maybe I'll just sleep this one through, while she and God work through the process.
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