KattyWilly

“Seeing her lying on the ER bed, I realized how little I can protect
her. As a mom I’ve made many choices, seeking what would be best for my
girls, pursuing what would ensure their safety and health. But the
truth of parenting is that I can’t control everything. I will see them
suffer at times and I won’t be able to fix it.”

This is from a post on Julie’s blog from a while back.
It had quite an effect on me when I read it. I wanted to post
something about it but it was a little to strong and I couldn’t.
Julie’s post is about a trip to the ER with her daughter to get a cut
taken care of. They were visiting the city of angels (LA) and her
post has some thoughts on angels and God and the concepts of God
looking out for us. These are frequent thoughts for me and the
girls. There are many very religious and caring people that make
DGI (don’t get it) statements about God’s wishes and his involvement in
our situation. Faith is something that is questioned during the
grieving process.

Both of my girls have had face crashes. Lindsey’s first was a
header into the cement blocks and tile that form the hearth of our
fireplace. I wasn’t there to see that one so Cindy had the
opportunity to do the trip to the doctor and stitches. We were
not all that impressed by the job they did and that scar is still
visible today. Chelsey’s fall was a flying leap, as if she were a
dog, off the sofa and face first onto the corner of the coffee
table. I saw that one in full color, super slow motion.
When I picked her up and carried her to the kitchen I fully expected
gushing blood and that she was going to have lost her eye. But we
were lucky and it was just a rather clean deep cut just above the
eye. After our experience with Lindsey we decided to do the Dr.
mom version and got some butterfly strips and patched her up
ourselves. Lindsey would go on to do another face to the bathroom
sink crash that resulted in her just above the eye experience.

Julie says,

“Psalm 91 makes bold claims about God’s protection and it
is a hard psalm to read when one is wondering and suffering.

For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”

She wonders about how close they came to a much more serious injury and
wonders if the angels somehow have some impact. Not in as to what
happens but as to what doesn’t happen. That is, they didn’t stop
the fall that lead to the injury but perhaps did lift just enough so
the injury wasn’t as serious as it could have been. I too am
amazed at how close the kids come to serious injury only to end up with
little cuts and bruises. I tend to attribute that to the
incredible design of human children. The bone structure around
the eyes and the indented location of the delicate eye within that
socket structure seems to be there just to protect our children from
more serious damage when they fall.

But I do frequently wonder about the angels or God’s influence on what
happened to Cindy. One of the things that I think about is how
the smallest change in the events of that day could have influenced
what happened. Just a tiny delay at school, or even losing her
keys in her purse for a few seconds. At the speed he was
travelling just a matter of a second and he would have missed the car
and driven into the empty field in front of the church. Just the
smallest of angel lifts could have protected Cindy.

But that didn’t happen.

“It’s just enough to see a shooting star
To know you’re never really far
It’s just enough to see a shooting star
To know you’re never really gone

Oh, please don’t go
Let me have you just one moment more
Oh, all I need
All I want is just one moment more”

One Moment More
Mindy Smith

“Not even the stars can say
how I would feel if you were taken away
couldn’t possibly imagine the pain
knowing that I will never hear your laugh again.”

Here And Hereafter
Happy Rhodes

I don’t have to imagine, I know exactly what it feels like.

We went to the Fair!

Halley points to Spark Craft Studios.
Our dining room doesn’t look exactly like Spark Craft but Cindy and her
craft buddy Sheryl would have regular craft nights where they would
take over the dining room table and do that craft thing. I called
it Crap Night as it sometimes seemed like they didn’t get crap done.
Rather it was a time to have a beer and chat for a few hours while
pretending to make some sort of craft.

I wonder if a place like Spark Craft would be a good place to meet single women 🙂

When I was a kid I would go nuts in the Arts and Crafts and Stationary
stores. All those colors and textures. It seemed like
anything was possible, all sorts of art and beauty. I wanted one
of each color. Then I would get it home and all that potential
turned into disappointment when I couldn’t make anything beautiful
happen with all those cool colors.

Here is my 4th Quarter Super Bowl Dessert.  A little Cabreles and
some New Glarus Imperial Stout. Yummy.  All thanks to my friend in
the north, not unlike the place where they filmed the Mustang
Commercial with the frozen driver.

Julie said something that really made me think:

“Passion is what we do when we love someone or something beyond our fears.”

I wonder if there is a reverse corollary that might start out something like
“what happens to someone when their fears are greater than their
passions.”

Or more applicable to the way I see things how does one try to deal
with the struggle between one’s fears and one’s passions. What if
anything can one do to try and get more passion in one’s life to try
and overcome one’s fears. Or how can I minimize the fears that I
have to allow for more passion in my life.

I think one answer is to find the love that Halley described in the original post on Love and Bravery (scroll down past the underwear) and it will overcome any fears or at least let you find the bravery to overcome any fears.

I had to try these just to see.  They aren’t that bad but have nothing to do with Cheese Curds.

The other night Lindsey and Gavin and I had a grocery store Sushi
dinner. We bought a box of fortune cookies to go with it.

“So,
now that I’m looking at my life’s priorities, I’m trying to make

sure that every day I do something fun.” Robert is looking to
have fun too.

This morning I was going through a gallery of travel photos on the net that someone
took during a trip to Disney World and the Magic Kindom with their
small children. I was remembering how much fun we had taking the
girls to Disney when they were little. For us in those days it
really did seem like the happiest place on earth. Then at lunch I
heard a reading of this Edna St. Vincent Millay poem that talks about a
different kingdom. This gives a sense of what I keep trying to
describe when I talk about what the girls have lost. Childhood.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies

Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age
The child is grown, and puts away childish things.
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.

Nobody that matters, that is. Distant relatives of course
Die, whom one never has seen or has seen for an hour,
And they gave one candy in a pink-and-green stripéd bag, or a jack-knife,
And went away, and cannot really be said to have lived at all.

And cats die. They lie on the floor and lash their tails,
And their reticent fur is suddenly all in motion
With fleas that one never knew were there,
Polished and brown, knowing all there is to know,
Trekking off into the living world.
You fetch a shoe-box, but it’s much too small, because she won’t curl up now:
So you find a bigger box, and bury her in the yard, and weep.
But you do not wake up a month from then, two months
A year from then, two years, in the middle of the night
And weep, with your knuckles in your mouth, and say Oh, God! Oh, God!
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies that matters,
–mothers and fathers don’t die.