June 06, 2012

To Everything... Turn...

Everly was born on August 26th, 2011 at about 9:30am.  That was the first of several times over the following months things started to be "fishy."  Although your first guess, poop, would also be correct I'm talking about something else entirely.  In this quick little series, I want to tell you why where we are now is so dramatically different from this time a year ago.

In July, I wrote about the transition I was experiencing at New Life; I was licensed as a Pastor while simultaneously stepping back from directing the New Life School of Worship. The 10th year of the program began with a bang, Everly was weeks old, and life was suddenly different. Parenthood is a wonderful, glorious, ego-killing slap in the face. I'm not sure I was an adult beforehand.

Past readers know of my cycling adventures and enthusiasm. Fall was thickening, and the hours of daylight after work were waning. At the end of September I had purchased a head and taillight for my Bianchi road bike and embarked on my 2nd ever dusk/dark ride. Strobes ablaze I rode 16 miles, and 2 blocks from home was hit by a car.

You must understand, as shocking that sentence would be to someone who read it for the first time, I've been talking about it now for over 8 months.

A driver made a left-hand turn in of me - though I had the right of way - and I was rocketed over his car at roughly 25mph. I'm guessing as to the speed, but it was fast, my light was green, I was going downhill and was almost home. I remember thinking in the final .86 seconds that allowed normal thought, "I hope I'm OK for my family," and "I've had close calls, but this won't be one of them."

But then I was off the bike, hit the road... and I'll spare the blow by blow details. I'm alive. In short, it was all a miracle. No concussion or internal bleeding, and though I can't say I 'walked away' - from the ambulance or the hospital for that matter - I can tell you something changed in both Jo and I that night. If having a baby took away some of our ignorance about life, this took the rest.

I'm still recovering to a degree; I won't be the person I was before ever again. I regret that it happened - but now that it has I am thankful for the new awareness it brought. These were the "tickles" that began to propel us forward... toward what - we still had no idea.


The journey continues in Part 2...

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