December- "That could have been bad"

I've learned a lot from my parents.  One very important tidbit that my Momma taught me is that it is often beneficial to start a story with "Everything/Everyone is fine, but...".  Taking away the tension of wondering whether anyone is hurt, significant damage is done, etc, eases the blow a bit.  Unfortunately I got to practice that line a couple of times last month.

Everyone is fine, but...
We were in a wreck.
The kids and I were on our way back from across town, in stop-and-go rush hour traffic when the cars in front of us stopped suddenly.  The car in front of me came to a stop, I came to a stop...unfortunately the person behind us did not. And hit us hard enough to push us into the truck in front of us.  It really wasn't that bad, the only reason there was serious damage to the front of my minivan is because the truck in front of me was adorned with a rather large trailer hitch decoration that lodged itself into my front bumper...and pulled the whole bumper off.  Sounds bad, but really, we were smack dab in the middle of one of the busiest interstates in our city at 5pm.  This could have been so much worse.

When impact first occurred, there was a split second when all I could hear was my boys screaming from the back-seat and my heart lodged in my throat.  I turned around to check on them not sure what I would find.  There are not many scarier feelings.  But really the only reason they were so upset was because the toys they had been playing with had scattered and they couldn't reach them.  SERIOUSLY?  I mean, I know they were a little scared, too, but you better believe there was a serious pep-talk at that point about the fact that we need to be so THANKFUL that the Lord kept us safe. It was just an accident and we are ok. The little pep-talk may or may not have ended with "and who CARES about the toys...it probably isn't even safe to have those toys in here anyway."  And you better believe that when I got home I cleaned every single piece of anything I could find OUT of the van.

The ride home after was hilarious.  Kinda.  I mean besides the fact that I was driving a minivan missing its entire front end, the kids' recap was so funny.  KJ was in a constant broken-record-cycle of "Mom, we left our bumper back there on the side of the road.  Mom, we don't have a bumper on the front of our van.  Mom, where can we get a new bumper?  (insert my response of "Mechanics" and his thoughtful "hum, 'mechanic' is an interesting word") Mom, Are you sure it is safe to drive without a bumper. Mom, does Dad know we left our bumper under a bridge?"  ALL THE WAY HOME.   And there was Lou (aka the other Mommy) chiming in with "Guys, it was just an accident.  Accidents happen.  The policeman checked on us and we are fine.  We don't need to cry.  It was just an accident".  Cbug, just wanted to know when he could have his toys back.   And I was just glad we were driving home.

After a vicious two weeks of fighting the insurance cycle, perseverance paid off.  With a combination of pictures, good insight from the truck in front of us and just being plain nice to the adjuster, he FINALLY believed my story that I was in fact STOPPED before the car behind me hit and therefore in no way responsible for paying for the damage to my vehicle or the vehicle in front of me.  That was a huge relief.

No, this is not a picture of our new vehicle.  This is the rental car that my husband came home with.  He "innocently" said, upon return "They offered me a free upgrade".  I was sort-of thinking that might mean a mini-van.  Not this HUGE truck that I got to drive instead.  Oh, Boys.

So, the van is fixed.  Yes, KJ, the mechanic could in fact replace our bumper (that was stolen from the spot I had to leave it on the side of the highway...good thing I thought to remove the license plate).  And in the end we were just thankful that everyone was fine.

Everything is fine, but...

I lost my engagement ring diamond.

Oh i was just sick.  RRL and I were headed to pick up our kids after being at the youth Christmas play at church when I noticed that the diamond in my engagement ring was GONE.  Because of the way my ring is set, I play with the setting pretty frequently, so I knew it had to have happened recently.  But recently could have been in the parking lot, in the bathroom, in the youth center.  Ugh, I was sick thinking about crawling around on my hands and knees all night with a flashlight to find it (totally willing to do it, just dreading that it might not yield the result I hoped for). 

We drove to pick up the kids and I carefully combed over my clothing to be sure it wasn't stuck there.  Then when we stopped I fumbled through the papers on the floorboard while praying that it would just PLEASE BE THERE.  And sure enough, I felt something hard and pointy and there it was.  RRL had it reset the next day and it looks even more sparkly than before in the new setting.  It wasn't so much the idea of the financial burden to replace the diamond that killed me as much as thinking about it being the diamond that he CHOSE just for me more than 10 years before.  To me that was irreplaceable.  And I was thankful it was restored and everything was fine. 

ABL