Sunday night (November 8, 2020), G had to get his head x-rayed after he fell out of a tree, down a slope, and landed on his back in a lake between two boulders. He’s doing much better today, battered, bloody, and bruised, but nothing major. While Laura and I are not physically injured, we watched him fall and thought we had lost him. So, as parents, we are a bit raw. Little brothers and big sisters are resilient little creatures.
When it happened, we immediately went into, “check what’s broken” mode. Fortunately when he landed in the water, he sprang up and started climbing back out of the mucky water and up the muddy side. This at least lead me to believe that his spine was okay, his legs are okay, but nothing was for certain. He was in shock, we got him up the rest of the slope to a bench and looked over his drenched body. I started to run the mile home to get the car when I quickly realized, that I should ask for help, so I called my good friend, John, for a ride home. Now is not the time to be stubborn.
John, got us home, we grabbed a change of clothes, a towel, and drove like a bat out of hell to the nearest Children’s Urgent Care. He cried, shook, and breathed fast in the back seat as I made my way through traffic. J helped where she could and was at the ready for them. When we finally arrived, Laura and G, stayed in with the medical team while J and I settled in for the wait.
3 hours later, we got the clear from the doctor to go home. Everyone was hungry, I picked up burgers at a local joint, and we drove slowly. We got home, picked at our burgers and didn’t say much. G assured us that he was okay. He hugged J, we finally tucked them in and called in sick from school the following day.
We got lucky, as able bodied, strong, and mentally prepared as we are, we got lucky. Accidents happen.
We have friends and family around us that have the empathetic capacity to sit with us, listen to us, and NOT judge us for this. Thank you to the bartender that rushed me some tater tots when my super-hungry son finally got out. I forgive you to the guy at the bar that flipped out that she was serving me first. Reacting to a book cover is easy. Taking the time to read the pages is hard. What ever you have going on in your life to react to me like that, I hope that it gets better.
So, what did I learn?
- Nothing could have prevented this, nothing! It is nobody’s fault. Accidents happen.
- My time and experiences with my family MUST be my number one priority. Work cannot get in the way, yet it must allow me the ability have much more focused time with them.
- My time with them as kids is short – I am going to plan many more unplugged adventures for all of us. Not for Instagram, not for Facebook…for us.
Hello, I am Shelton. 