So Bad, Yet it Could Be So Much Worse

A few weeks ago I got my van back from the shop after the accident I was in.  The side that had been hit looked brand new again.  I was glad to have it back after a few weeks of only having the truck to get all of us where we needed to go.  A few days later, Jason was home for the day and the older kids were at school.  He was heading downtown to the running shoe store and asked if I wanted to run down there on the parkway and he would drive down with Skyler and pick me up.  I was glad for a new route to run and as I headed out the door I said, "Don't call me.  I don't have my phone.  Just be there in an hour."  An hour later I arrived downtown and Jason wasn't there yet.  My first thought was that he had been in a car accident but I figured I was just worried because I had just been in an accident.  He must just be running late.  Since I didn't have a phone to call him I just stood outside stretching but I kept getting more nervous as time passed.

A few minutes later a car pulled into the parking lot and a lady I didn't know stuck her head out the window and asked if I was Merrilee.  That's when my heart really started to pound and I knew something was really wrong.  She told me I needed to come with her and my husband had been in a car accident.  As we were driving she told me that Jason and Skyler seemed OK but they had Skyler in the ambulance checking him out.  In my mind I was thinking, was it really that bad?  I asked again if my baby was OK and she told me she had wiped the glass off his face but he looked all right.  Then I started to cry.  I was so scared and even though we were only a few blocks from the accident it seemed like it took forever to get there.  I realized I didn't know which car he was even driving and while I didn't want the van damaged right after it was fixed I was really hoping it wasn't the new truck.  I finally asked her after she assured me that no one looked hurt and she told me it was the van but warned me that my car was not OK.  I really wasn't prepared for the scene when she dropped me off.  I was picturing a little fender bender off to the side of the road but there were cop cars and ambulances everywhere.  After a quick thank you to the sweet lady who picked me up I ran towards the scene looking for Jason and Skyler.

I caught a quick glimpse of what was left of my car and it was horrifying.  Every side of it was damaged and all of the windows had been smashed.  Everything that wasn't seat belted into the car was lying on the road.  Jason called to me from the closest ambulance and I ran over to it.  Skyler was crying and Jason was holding some gauze up to his ear.  It turned out to just be a small cut from a piece of glass that was in his ear.  Jason was in shock and Skyler seemed terrified by everything going on around him.  Jason told me he wasn't hurt and just had a cut on his hand.  The EMTs thought Skyler was all right but wanted to transport him to the hospital just to have him checked out since he was so small and the accident was so severe.  Jason didn't want the ambulance transport but with no car or car seat to get there ourselves I decided we should just go.  I had just a minute to look at the van and grab a few things.  Our van was hit on the back corner while going through the intersection. When it was hit it spun and the witnesses said it rolled several times.  It finally came to rest upright a couple hundred yards from the intersection on the sidewalk.

Skyler hated the ambulance ride.  He was still screaming when we arrived at the hospital and took us into an ER room.  The doctors and nurses came in to look at him and he fought them the whole time.  They decided he looked like he wasn't hurt so they just wanted to keep an eye on him for a bit and see if he calmed down.  They gave him a snack and after everyone left the room he finally stopped crying.  Jason took off his shirt and he was covered in glass underneath his clothes.  Skyler also had glass inside his clothes and diaper.  The police officer came in to talk to us.  He told us we had done everything right with installing the car seat and buckling Skyler in.  Then he hesitated before he went on and I could tell he was trying to decide if he should say it.  He asked if we were religious and then told us that he has seen so many accidents just like ours where the baby doesn't make it.  He said he wasn't trying to be dramatic but that he was so amazed to see our little boy running around the hospital room instead of in the cemetery.  He said the way the side of the car was dented right by his head, that had he even just been in a different car seat that allowed his head to move a little more he wouldn't have made it.  He told us there are some things that just can't be explained and we were being watched over.  The other driver wasn't hurt for which we were also extremely grateful and had fairly minimal damage to his truck compared with our car.

So my car that was like new again was totaled.  Later that day we went to the towing company to gather our belongings.  I was sad to see my car looking so bad.  Maybe it's silly but I become a little attached to my cars.  But mostly, with a little more time to look at it, I was awe struck and more grateful than I can express that Jason and Skyler had walked away with only a few scratches.  Here's what the car looked like.

As we were driving away I told Jason that our car looked worse than any other car that had been towed there.  His response was, "Didn't you see that one that had been burned?"  OK, so I guess looking on the bright side of things, at least the car didn't catch on fire.  Really, it was a terrible day that I would never want to repeat and yet we were so blessed at the same time and it could have been so much worse.  That night I couldn't sleep.  Once Skyler woke up and didn't want to go back to sleep so I laid down on his floor.  I finally slept there when I could hear him breathing.  The next week I felt like I couldn't let him out of my sight.  It was like somehow he was going to disappear if I did.  I am now the biggest advocate of seat belts and car seats. They definitely saved both Jason's and Skyler's lives that day.  And yet I know it was more than that too.  I'm so grateful to my Heavenly Father for protecting them.

I spent the next couple weeks hassling with the insurance claims and shopping for a new van.  I'd definitely put both of those things on my list of things I don't like to do.  I got a beautiful new Honda Odyssey with much nicer features than my old van so I guess it all turned out all right in the end.