once again so thankful

There's been an accident.... it's a call you never want to get, but I got one Thursday afternoon, not long after I got home from work. On Thursdays Grandma Sandi has Maya with her and they pick Abby up after school to go to riding lessons at 4:30. Mike and I meet them at the stable at that time. The call I got was from my sitter, she said that Grandma Sandi and Maya had been in a minor accident, so she got Abby off the bus and had her at her place.

There was some unintentional miscommunication regarding where the accident had happened so after we picked up Abby we ended up driving in the complete opposite direction of where we should have been going. Hindsight being twenty twenty, I wish we'd never picked Abby up at all, but we really had no idea what we were going to find.

Finally headed in the right direction, we could see some cars on the side of the road and figured that's where they were. As we got closer I realized that one of the vehicles was a police car, lights on and blocking the road from traffic. My anxiety was rising by the second. Somehow Papa was already on the scene and a neighbour of ours as well. I couldn't see the accident for vehicles. I hopped out of the van and took off to find my baby. Papa had her in the front seat of his truck and as soon as he saw me he called out, she's fine. I have her, she's fine. I picked her up and burst into tears. Maya was crying, Abby was crying and we were all hugging each other as tight as we dared.

Then I looked up and saw Sandi's jeep. Upside down. Way too close to the edge of road. Way too close to the pond that the very narrow shoulder dropped into. I'm not quite sure how I kept my knees from buckling. I'm not quite sure how I continued to breathe. I'm not sure how I was able to cry any harder than I already was. I was coming apart at the seams and there was sweet sweet Maya patting me on the back telling me, Mommy I'm okay. I'm okay. Looking at the car it hardly seemed like that was possible.



This is as they were in the process of flipping the jeep back over.


EMS had already been and gone by the time we got there. Maya had a scrape on her cheek, a couple of scrapes in her hairline, some small cuts on her face and a small cut on her hand. Grandma Sandi had some cuts and scrapes on her forearm and her elbow, but other than that they were okay.

If you saw it on the news and lots of people did, there was some misinformation there. It kind of came across as a single vehicle accident where speed may have been a factor. Not true, there was another vehicle involved. They were also reporting that there was two adults and a child in the car, again not true. Mike's stepdad was at the scene, but he hadn't been in the car with them. Thank goodness because the passenger side took the worst of it. And yes, Maya was sitting in the rear on the passenger side.



Flipped back over.


It took us a few hours to get back home, but when we did we had ML check her over and her opinion was to err on the side of caution and take her in to the hospital and have her checked out. We did and she got her second clean bill of health for the day. Such a relief.

By the next day the full weight of what could have been rested itself across both Mike and I. Maya and I spent the morning holed up under blankets on the couch watching Despicable Me and me squeezing her as much as she would let me. Maya for her part has been a tremendous trooper. She came through it like a champ. Bouncing back way quicker than any of the adults in her life.

There is an endless list of people to thank. The guys that were at the scene to help Maya and Sandi get out of the car. Luckily when you live in a small town it can be easy to track these angels down to offer up proper thank yous. My Uncle and his family for letting us regroup at his place while we waited for them to finish with the jeep and drop it off. ML for letting us take advantage of her nursing skills again. Her family for letting us have her for the evening of waiting at emerg. My Mom and TLP for waiting with us at the hospital, for rubbing my back and just helping us get through it. Papa who has this uncanny knack of always being where we need him to be, often before we even know we need him. I am so very thankful he was there with Maya before we got there. Grandma Linda for taking Abby home for the night when decided to head down to the hospital. HPH and TC for the texts and their offers of help. Once again we were surrounded by so much love. Thank you all for the phone calls, texts, messages, hugs... both virtual and the real life variety. We appreciate it all so very much and I hope you can all feel the hugs I am sending back to you.