Yesterday was a day… a Saturday.  I woke up irritated and frustrated due to some events from the night before.  It’s a kid weekend, and one kid and I don’t seem to see eye to eye on anything.  Friday night was a rough start to the weekend.  Saturday morning, I’d hoped to be up at my usual o’dark early to have some quiet time and sort through the angst and frustration I was feeling, knowing that if I didn’t, the weekend would only get more difficult.  Restless sleep led me to actually sleeping in until after 8:30… highly unusual.  My heart was heavy, but instead of leaving it at the foot of the cross, I carried it around and ran scenarios through my head.  The house began to wake up and life went on as usual.  I tried to approach the day with a happy heart and be all that I could be!  But, due to my high transparency, that was not a huge success.  By mid day I was off by myself, sobbing, and playing the “why me” card.  Being a step mom is the hardest job on the planet in the family world… or so I thought.  I was feeling so low that I even wrote a “poem” which depicted such a sad little story about me.  No one will ever read it!  I’m pretty sure I heard God whisper, “Um ya, you should really shred that, because it is not about you, but about Me.  Your value and worth come from me, not a husband or (step) children.”  Well, I heard, but did not obey right away.  I still had some wallowing to do.  I kicked around the house and imagined my life if I hadn’t come back to WA.  I played the “what if” game and ran lists of shoulda, woulda, coulda’s through my mind all day long.  Without all the gory details, you can see that it was not a productive or healthy day…. for anyone.

My mood began to pick up a little as the afternoon wore on.  I was able to get out in the yard for a spell.  My husband and I had a good talk about our future and our health and made some decisions as to what we are going to do together to improve our lives.  The clouds were beginning to part and I began to feel like maybe the day was not a total loss.  I prepared dinner and everyone helped.  Before we knew it, we were sitting around the table (minus our middle child who was away at a skating party) enjoying one of our family favorites; taco salad and fresh guacamole.  The mood was light and the sun was trying to shine.  Suddenly we heard a motorcycle heading down our road at a very high rate of speed.  Note I said heard.  My first thought in that split second was, “dang, that guy must be going really fast.”  I turned my head to watch him pass by and what I saw was the motorcyclist, his bike, a bicyclist and his bike flying by our window, coupled with a horrible crashing sound.  Our world stopped for that split second and we watched, in slow motion, as two men and their bikes slid down the road coming to a stop across the road in front of our driveway and bay window.  We immediately jumped into action, calling 911 and getting blankets.  I kept praying that they would get up and brush themselves off.  No one moved.  People began streaming in from all over the neighborhood.  I stayed on the line with 911 and eventually emergency help arrived.  When all was said and done we had two ambulances, four fire trucks and several law enforcement.  It was chaos everywhere as the story unfolded.  Everyone began to recount what they had seen and heard.  Debris was everywhere, including a beer can way up on our driveway near our patio.  The area was cordoned off by police and we were asked to go inside our house so they could do their job.  We all came in and sat in the living room. We prayed.  We felt absolutely helpless.  Our middle daughter was not home and we began to worry about her and just wanted her there with us.  I began to make phone calls to assist her in getting this way, as our whole house was blocked off.  I just wanted to hold my family and not let them go.

Life can change in an instant.  In this case, it was not our lives that were directly affected, but what am impact it had on all of us.  Anything that was going on during the day, seemed pointless.  I’ve already been down this path once with my beautiful bonus daughter in CA.  Her near fatal car accident stopped us in our tracks and put our lives into very clear perspective in the matter of a moment.  Last night we watched as they tried to revive the motorcyclist and knew that when the ambulance drove away,  he had not lived.  We prayed that the older man on the bike would live, but found out later that he had lost his battle during surgery.  We watched as the investigators spent hours marking, measuring, photographing, and putting the pieces of the puzzle together.   Our middle daughter finally arrived home with the help of her mom and a long walk from where they had to park.  We all stood together in our living room, thankful that everyone was okay and safe.  It was a very poignant moment on many levels.  Another example of how precious life is and how we get wrapped up in the small stuff.

In an instant, people’s lives were changed… and not in a good way.  In an instant, my life was changed… our lives were changed… in a good way, for the lack of a better way to say it.  My perspective on the woes of my life were once again, brought into much clearer focus.  My pity-party ended abruptly with the collision of two unsuspecting lives.  People came, people helped, people wept, and people prayed…. all forever changed.