Free Falling

There are probably many titles I could have used for this post:

God is Good
Being a Mom is Hard Somethings
Keeping things In Perspective

My daughter is healthy, her organs work, she has all 5 senses working properly, she can walk & skip & run...when you think on these things...well, we've got it all!

Until it feels like you don't...

My youngest daughter got seriously injured on the playground yesterday.

Here's the "technical stuff":

She somehow fell off of a ladder...in the course of her fall, she must have hit the horizontal bar, straddling it before spinning sideways hard onto her face that broke her fall before landing on the rocks.  Upon receiving the call from the school, I immediately dropped every grocery item I was carrying at the store, and dialed the dentist on my way to the school clinic's office.  Upon arrival, I was met with a very scared little girl with so much blood & tears that I knew "tough mommy" had to make an appearance. She had to pull it together so I could assess the situation.  My first instinct was to get her to the dentist ASAP, which we did.  The x-rays there indicated that the ligament or bone to whatever it is that the teeth are socketed into was split down the middle.  Her permanent front teeth (that she has slowly been growing in) were terribly loose and everything was swelling more and more.  The bleeding and swelling need to go down before they could determine the next course of action, so we were sent home to calm down & rest.  It was there that I noticed her walking very gingerly.  Once we were home and upon further inspection, I realized that we needed to see the doctor for some other injuries from her straddling the bar.  They told us to come immediately, to which I learned from my Munchkin that she had experienced ringing in her ears and had felt dizzy immediately following her fall. 

The kind doctor did some neurological tests on her to somewhat rule out a concussion, but due to other symptoms felt it necessary to send us to Children's to get x-rays of her face and her pelvic area. 

Seven hours after the incident occurred we pulled into our driveway still somewhat in shock.

Let me try to explain ...

I felt like I was free falling...you know that feeling when you're at the top of the roller coaster and then it just lets loose?...you scream or hold your breath or whatever, because you know the end is just a few seconds away...

except, in this kind of free falling, you just keep falling...you don't want to be falling, you want to STOP...freeze time...go back in time...ANYTHING to NOT continue in the direction in which you are being forced.  I felt like I was having an argument with my own brain...I did not WANT to keep down this path...I wanted a way out, immediately...and there was no way OUT, there was just forward...there was just "take the next step",  only  a "do the next right thing"...

My daughter asked me (writing on a pad of paper because her mouth was so full of yuck & swollen that she couldn't speak well) "Mommy, why did God make this bad thing happen?"

It was in that split second that I remembered my own mother having to do 10 times harder a thing with my little sister...walking alongside her through 3 heart surgeries and countless hospital stays...I thought of other mommas that day in and day out deal with this sort of "falling" on a constant basis until it's almost their norm, which is almost laughable to even think of describing it that way...it's awful...

But, I had to answer her.  "Sweetheart, I don't know...God doesn't normally tell us the WHY behind the things that happen.  He has only chosen to tell us the things we really NEED to know...and what we DO KNOW is this:  Jesus knows what is feels like to hurt and hurt badly and He didn't like it either...God loves you more than you can even understand...He promises that He NEVER leaves you, even when you are hurting and having to do things that you are scared to do...AND He also said that He promises to always use whatever hurt or things we don't like, for good...to make us or others more like Him"

She amazed me because she immediately started telling me the things that she was thankful for...that we didn't live in the 1800s and only have horses, but that we had a nice car to ride in to get to the doctors fast...thankful that she could still see and hear and smell and taste and feel...thankful that even though it hurt, she could still walk...we kept rattling off things we were thankful for the entire ride...

It's been over 24 hours now.

The nighttime was rough for mom and dad...she slept fine until around 5am...I don't think my husband or I slept at all...or perhaps we were in that in between state.  We still weren't positively sure there wasn't a concussion so we wanted to watch her closely, but we didn't want her to be too close to anyone sleeping because we didn't want her bumped or knocked in the night.

We went back to the dentist this morning and checked in with the doctors in the afternoon.  There is still a very large chance that she'll need a root canal for her front teeth. She can't eat regularly or normal food for a good long while at this point...so we've stocked up on protein drinks and drinkable yogurts.To be vulnerably honest, I don't want to think about a month from now...whether the nerves will die and whether she'll need surgery to correct it...It's frustrating for me because I feel like a wimp that I don't want to face those things just yet...and at the same time, I know WHEN I do need to deal with it, I'll have the grace needed to do so.

I'm trying to take my own advice for her...that we just live in the moment that we are in...we do the next thing that we are supposed to do, to the best of our ability and we let the "what ifs" deal with themselves...

It's been a long day...but, I'm thankful for so many things...I think I'm in awe of the depth of love each of us has for our loved ones...that fierce, focused, constant compassion...I'm also amazed at the grace given in the moments we need them to just BE what we need to be IN that moment.  I'm rocked once again by my false perception that I have even an inkling of control over any given situation...and that can be scary, but also a reminder that there is Someone who IS in control, even when I feel as though I'm free falling...