A Tribute to my Sonshine!

If you think back about your life, you’ll remember some days better than others.  There will be those days that have come and gone without even a mere thought because of the mundane routine of thing, there will be faint recollections of events from other days because something significant happened, and then there will be the days that you remember every single detail because that was the day that changed you forever.  I have had several life altering days, most of them have been good….the day I got married, the births of my children….but there was one day in particular that has made the most impact for the rest of my future.  I literally think of it EVERY day and have since it happened in March 2004.  It was the day that I almost lost my son, Zach.  I realize that to most of you who read this, this is really, really old news.  But, this isn’t about shedding light on some new insight.  I’m just merely writing this mainly for myself .  I was reading the blog the other day from the mom who gave her perspective about “Don’t Carpe Dieme”  (yes most of you moms have probably read it…).  And while I’m not blogging here to dispute the validity of her claim that not every moment of parenting is enjoyable, I will say that you can’t tell a mom who’s almost lost her precious son to not embrace every minute of his life, even if those moments are inconvenient for me or have made me reach my boiling point.  That’s not to say that parenting is easy or that Zach hasn’t gotten in his fair share of trouble.  I get a call from his school EVERY year in October telling me that Zach would rather entertain his class than embrace his academic excellence.  If you know Zach, you’ll agree he is THE messiest person you’ve ever met.  Because there were so many grandkids on my mom’s side of the family, I didn’t get much after their passing but I did get an antique milk glass lamp that I displayed proudly in my foyer.  You guessed it – Zach broke it!  My niece, Sarah, made a sculpture with her very best friend that they were going to display in their apartments one day.  Zach managed to break that too and we hardly ever went to their house!  There have been consequences for Zach’s actions.  But, no matter what we go through in life, I’ll take the bad with the good because it could have been worse…there could have been no more good times to be had if he had died that day.   

The rest of this blog is rather lengthy because it’s my version of what happened that day because it changed everything about how I view those around me, how I don’t take anything for granted, and about the most amazing miracle I have ever witnessed.  There’s a scripture that admonishes us to declare the wonderful works that the Lord has done and I don’t want to forget and I want others to hold onto hope that no matter what you’re going through, there is a real God who cares about everything we go through good and bad!).  So, if you don’t want to read the rest of this blog, I totally understand because it’s mostly for me and it’s for my son.  So, I leave you with this…

Our life really is fleeting…here today and possibly gone tomorrow.  And, that goes for those that you love too.  There are no guarantees that you’ll have that next opportunity to express your love to those around you.   The time here is so short that if it’s all taken up with hate and anger, then it’s a wasted life.  There’s only enough time to love.   If you died today, what would you want the world to know about you?  If someone you loved died today, what would you have regretted – would it be something you said to them (or didn’t say?), would it be time you didn’t spend with them, would it be time you spent being angry and meditating on all of the petty things that didn’t go your way? 

The things I learned that day have changed me forever.  I would be amiss if I didn’t share them.  There’s no reason to have to go through a tragedy to learn to carpe diem even if a well known and highly circulated blog tells you that you don’t have to.  Here are a few things I learned that will change you if you let it.

1.        Be thankful – for everything!  You will always find at least one thing to be thankful for and then express that thanks!  Once you find that ONE thing, there will be more to come….

2.       There is a real God who does hear our prayers and is moved at the sound of our voices.  He cares about us and He has not left us alone to go through this life miserable until we reach the sweet by and by. 

3.       There are people in your life that care about you and there are people in your life to care for.  Weakness isn’t necessarily failure.  There are times that we need to rely on the strength of others to get us through our own victories.   And, there will be times when you need to step up to the plate and see a need and fill it.  You may be the answer to someone’s prayers

4.       Really, really enjoy those around you especially your family!  Don’t be so serious all of the time and don’t think that everything is a crisis.  Laugh with each other and be happy!  The goal of your family isn’t to be perfect….it’s to have a place where love can bloom.

5.       Determine to be the type of person that others want to be around.   Do you bring life to others or do you bring others down?  If you think your purpose in life is to complain so that others do something about it to make your life more comfortable, then you haven’t truly embraced what love really means.

6.       You have a purpose and a destiny to be fulfilled.  I don’t necessarily condone the “live as this is your last day” because then it would be easy to make stupid decisions like to get into debt and stuff like that.  But, I do live as if each day has a purpose and a reason and if it happens to be my last, would I have fulfilled my destiny and purpose

7.       LOVE, LOVE, LOVE.  Even when it hurts.  LOVE…..  God’s love for us sent his only son to the cross so that we could love.  When I think about my son, I realize the great price that was paid.

From the moment Zach was born, I knew there was something special about that little guy.  I distinctly remember sitting on my couch holding him up over my shoulder the first day I brought him home and crying because I felt like Zach was going to accomplish something so big.  Just a week after being born, he was diagnosed with meningitis and had to be hospitalized.  There’s nothing worse than to watch your lifeless baby who couldn’t even cry when they were doing the spinal tap because he was so weak and sick.  I wasn’t very strong during that…I could only sit and cry.  But, he bounced back pretty quickly and brought so much energy to our house.  He was very active and one of Jim’s friends told him once that he didn’t want to have a kid like Zach because he was so hyper.  Of course, this was a single guy with no experience with children. Though Ritalin crossed my mind SEVERAL times during his childhood, I knew God created this boy with enthusiasm for living and I didn’t care what anyone said – he was my son and I appreciated that our life wasn’t dull and boring because he brought so much zeal to it.  Again, that’s not to say that our house was void of discipline or flared tempers. 

So we were pretty much cruising through life until March 23, 2004.  Britt was 10 and Zach was 8.  I was driving home from picking up the kids from school and it was about 3:30 pm.  I had to turn right around to go back to the school in about another hour to go for conferences.  We were headed up the usual street that went to our house on Park Ave. in Council Bluffs.  We were driving a Ford Windstar van that we had just purchased from a sweet deal off of Ebay.  It had all the bells and whistles.  Zach was in the seat directly behind me and Brittany was in the seat behind the passenger side.  She had her seat belt on…Zach did not which I didn’t know at the time.  As we were going through that fateful intersection, we were having our usual after school conversation – “how was your day, what happened,” etc.  The direction I was going did not have a stop sign so I proceeded through that intersection and caught a glimpse out of my left eye that there was a car going unusually fast and coming right at us.  I didn’t even have time to warn the kids and it would have been my normal reflex to step on the break, but I didn’t.  MIRACLE #1.  (If I had put on the break, we wouldn’t have been as far up and the impact to our van would more than likely have killed either me or Zach.).  We were instantly hit on the third row seat driver’s side.  I think the other driver was going 55 in a 25 mph speed zone.  Immediately upon impact, Brittany started screaming all the way until our car slammed into a brick wall up past a sidewalk.  MIRACLE #2  (If anyone had been on the sidewalk, they probably would have been killed). We finally came to a stop and I looked back to see if the kids were ok.  Brittany was in shock but I knew she was ok.  Zach, on the other hand, was wedged in between his seat and the door lying on the floor motionless.  I was instantly in a panic and got out of the car to try to flag someone down.  Crazy thoughts go through your head when you’re under pressure.  I couldn’t see the other driver because he had flown down the other street out of sight from where we landed so I thought he had fled the scene.  We had been involved in a minor accident a few months prior and there were no witnesses.  So, I was thinking “I hope someone saw something and I need to be sure they stay at the scene to help us.”  I flagged down the first car I saw but I could barely walk because I was a bit hurt, scared for Zach, dazed and confused.  All I could say was “my son, did you see that, my son is hurt, I think the other driver left….”  The driver of that car got out but he just happened to be in a police uniform.  I thought that was great that the witness to my accident had been an actual law enforcement official so surely he would attest that it was not my fault.  Later, I found out that that same police officer had been “chasing” the driver who hit us.  The police couldn’t admit that he was chasing him because of liability and technicalities, but it turned out that he had stopped that driver over under suspicion that he was driving with a mobile meth lab (there’s more to the story, but this is the basics).  When they were pulled over and the officer got out of his car, the driver sped off but ultimately we stopped him.  Who knew at the time that we would be crime fighters on that day?

So anyways, the officer came to our van and more police officers started coming to the scene.  Zach started to come to and I kept asking him what his name was.  At first he couldn’t answer me at, then he finally could utter some words but his speech was slurred which really scared me.  They got us ready to put in an ambulance and I knew I had to call Jim to let him know where we were going  I barely said anything to him other than we had been hit and were going to the hospital in an ambulance.  I’m sure I sent him into a panic with so little information but I didn’t have my wits about me.  Then, I knew I needed to call the school to let them know I wouldn’t make it for conferences.  The crazy things we do…..

So, we loaded up in the ambulance.  Brittany wasn’t hurt, but they let her ride with us anyways.  We ended up at the hospital where Jim and several friends and family came as well.  They sent me right into xrays because they thought I might have crushed my ribs. Thankfully, I was just bruised.  Zach was talking fine by then so they just examined him but did no special tests.  After everything apparently checked out, they discharged us and sent us home.

My parents came home to spend some time with us and so my dad and Jim could go retrieve things from our van.  Zach and Britt went to the tv room to rest.  I was pretty sore, so we went to bed rather early.  We awoke out of our sleep around 8 or 9 pm to Zach throwing up.  MIRACLE #3  (If he had stayed asleep, he would surely have died).  We thought he had a concussion as we had been through that before with him.  We thought it best to take him back to the hospital but only Jim went because Britt was asleep and I was still sore.  We didn’t think it was any big deal.  I kept texting Jim while they were at the hospital, but I’ll never forget the worst text I ever received in my entire life.  It was more than a concussion.  Zach was dying.

It turned out that Zach had severed an artery in his brain, fractured his skull, and was bleeding to death.  They needed to rush him into emergency surgery.  Here I was at home with no car since our’s was totaled.  Brittany came out of her room to hear me crying and very upset and then she became very upset as well.  It had been such a hard day and I didn’t realize the toll that this traumatic day had on her.  Looking back, she was so strong for such a little girl.  I called our associate pastor, Dan Stuck, and told him I needed to get to the hospital right away.  He lived about 7 minutes away from me, but I think he arrived in 2 minutes.  He took us to the hospital.  Brittany was having a panic attack and I had to meet up with Jim who had just informed Zach what was going on.  When I went into the room, Zach was so brave and strong – not a tear in his eye – even though you could just tell he was so weak physically. I could barely keep my composure. I told him I loved him so much and then just like that, they wheeled him away.  It was about midnight at this time and I couldn’t be there to protect my son. 

Thankfully for my sanity, people started pouring into the hospital….our parents, our pastor (Lonnie and Carolyn who came all the way from Glenwood in a flash), my sister, friends, and people from our church.  The waiting room was pretty full.  I later found out that so many people we knew were calling each other to pray and so here were all these people losing sleep just to pray for our son.  Kandi Spidell, a friend, came and took Brittany to her house so that she could get some sleep.  I didn’t want Brittany to be away from me, but I knew that I wasn’t very strong at the time to nurture her so she was better off getting some rest.  Still, at 2:00 in the morning, people were coming to the hospital to support us.  I don’t think I could have made it through that time without all of them.  They were my MIRACLE #4!

Zach got out of surgery around 4 am.  When we got to see him, he was all bandaged up on his head, he was crying, thirsty, and weak.  But, he was alive!  They said he did well and that he would probably be in ICU for 24 hours.   But, then came MIRACLE #5 – he was out of ICU by noon and into a regular room where he continued to progress and then MIRACLE #6 – we went home the next day! 

We had so many people coming to the hospital nonstop….family, friends, Zach’s friends from school, the media (we were in the newspaper and on the news).  I think the nursing staff was annoyed with us because it was a flurry of activity and while I appreciated all of the support, I think they were glad we were going home.  The police got wind that Zach ended up back in the hospital so several officers came up and visited him too and even visited after we got home.  When the insurance agent arrived at our house to get my account of things, even he was touched by our story and amazed at the miracle of our son.  Zach got his bandages off and staples out a week later, played sports that following season, and hasn’t had any long term affects other than a scar on his head that you can clearly see if he keeps his hair short. 

A few months later, Zach had to testify against the guy who hit us.  He didn’t even look at Zach and never apologized.  He got sentenced to 5 years in prison, but only served 18 months.  This was his second offense.

No one will ever be able to tell me that miracles don’t happen.  No one will ever be able to tell me that there is no God.  No one will ever be able to tell me to “don’t carpe diem.”   I have sang a song to Zach ever since he was born – you are my sonshine, my only sonshine, you make me happy when skies are gray, you’ll never know dear how much I love you, please don’t take my sonshine away!