Wednesday, September 23, 2009

When life is not a catastrophe. Yay!

I didn't take this photo. It's from google images. But you'll get the idea from it.

Last night at midnight, my cell phone rang.

Child #1 was still out and about.

The blood coursing through my veins immediately turned to ice water.

Every parent of a driving teen reading this blog can relate. Every parent of a child who will one day be a driving teen can probably too.

Child #1: "Mom, Mom, I hit the median."

Me: "Are you hurt?"

Child #1: "No, but my tire popped."

Me: "Is anyone hurt?"

Child #1: "There's no one else around. But I can't drive home. The rim's wrecked."

Me: "Get out your AAA card and call for a tow truck. I'll wait up."


I think back to my days as a speech pathologist at a San Diego hospital. Back to when I had two guys in their early twenties on my case load. One had wrapped his vehicle around a tree. The other looked away from the road to adjust his car stero and careened into a transport truck.

Both guys were brain damaged. Neither would ever go back to the way he'd been pre car accident.

A popped tire and a bent-out-of-usefulness rim?

So not a catastrophe.

20 comments:

  1. Whew! That is so scary, but I'm glad everything is OK.

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  2. Scary, I know. All's well that ends well.

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  3. Glad it wasn't too bad!

    Last night must have been "Family Member Have Car Trouble Night!" My brother called our family last night at 10, saying that his wife was out of gas only .6 miles from their house. She was going out to get water and, ironically, gas for the car when it put-putted to a stop.
    We had to buy a gas can, fill it with gas, figure out how to work it, and get it to my sister-in-law.
    In the end it was all fine and they will be keeping an eye on their gas guage from now on!

    ~Meredith

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  4. in that first nanosecond after the word "mom" escapes from their lips we immediately have them in a ditch bleeding, so this was so not a catastrophe. yay!

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  5. So glad your son is okay. I know the feeling when you get those calls. Sometimes it makes you want to shrink them back into little kids but it never works that way.

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  6. I've had those fears, those calls and have been equally blessed/fortunate.

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  7. Well I remember the terror of late night calls. I'm glad it wasn't anything serious.

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  8. That is too scary...I can make my mind go crazy thinking about all the "what ifs" in situations like these...sooo glad everyone was okay!

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  9. I'm so glad it was okay!
    The teen years frighten me-why can't they stay small and cute?

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  10. Let's hope a flat tire is his only car drama!

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  11. Very glad he's okay. Another silver lining might be the close call making him realize how serious driving is... I know my first scare really made me less blase about driving when I was a teen.

    You should move back here. :-) I'm pretty sure with the new licensing here that 16 year olds can get their license... but they can't drive with other kids in the car unless there's also an adult.

    Oh, this made me curious, so I looked it up. Here.

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  12. OK that's thrown me for a six because for some reason I thought you were in your mid-twenties :)))

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  13. I so wish the law wouldn't allow kids to drive until their 18. It's so very scary. No wonder we women start turning grey near our 40's. It's because our kids start driving and we worry every second about it.

    Or is that just MY hair???

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  14. My heart started beating faster with that first line - you must have been in agony. What a relief that he's okay.

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  15. I like how you were able to put it in perspective, but I can just imagine how scary that must have been. I've got 4 years until my oldest drives. I'm already terrified.

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  16. Same thing happened a couple of years back with my oldest - she was changing a cd - honestly I think that's the main reason she drives - for the music. Scared her into paying more attention, but I understand the total fear. My husband drove into a greyhound bus one snowy December night back in '85 - our life has never been the same - and having spent last weekend in Regina where it happened I remembered those chilling emotions. Driving is such a dangerous thing! But experience is the best teacher.

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  17. ...and I thought that I was the only one person on this world that is paranoid, lol. Glad it was only tire. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Anna :)

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Comments are always welcome!