Red is For STOP

That is a picture of my mother-in-law’s car yesterday morning after she had a run in with someone who failed to stop at a red light.

Here’s the story.

Wednesday mornings my mother-in-law picks Harper up and takes him to Rolly Pollies. She came to the house like she usually does and as they headed out the door to pollies, Dakota and I also headed out to spend a little time at the playground. She and I had just started climbing on the equipment when I heard my phone ding. I looked at the text and saw that it was Tony and his message was at once alarming. It read “Hey call me now”. I knew it was urgent and I immediately thought something had happened with Mema and Harps. Of course I called him immediately and he told me that yes, they had been in an accident, but that they both seemed to be okay. I quickly started to gather up my stuff (stroller, Dakotas water, Dakota) and we raced to the car to go find where they were.

As soon as I could I called Mema’s phone and she picked up. She was quite upset but assured me that she and Harper were both okay. She told me that a woman failed to stop at a red light and that she’d hit her and that the other woman’s car had flipped over. I couldn’t work out what she was telling me, it just didn’t make sense at that moment, all I knew was I wanted to find them as quickly as possible and make sure they really were ok. She told me where they were and about 10 L-O-N-G minutes later I spotted all the flashing lights and wreckage.

When I got there I didn’t really know where to park, so I just found a spot in the middle of a blocked road and hopped out. I imagine I looked a little frantic as I half walked half jogged to the ambulance but as soon as I got there they asked me if I was “the mom” and when I nodded they let me climb in with my baby. (They had let Mema and Harper sit in the ambulance because it was so hot outside.) I can’t remember exactly what happened at that point, I just remember staring at Harper and Mema and thinking that they did indeed look okay. Of course Mema was shaken up and upset, but she looked fine otherwise. And Harper, well the second I climbed in he started to tell me about how Mema bumped another car…and he talked and talked and I was so thankful! The EMT told me it was up to me whether or not we take him to the hospital to be checked over, but everything about him seemed fine. I ultimately decided to skip the trip to the ER; he seemed fine, there was no damage to the area of the car he had been in and the EMT told me that he too felt that Harper was okay.

We got out of the ambulance and went to get in my van while we waited on the police to give us their report. As Harper climbed up in the van he asked me if we could go ahead and go to Pollies now. I explained that we’d missed it for the day, but I told him I’d turn on the AC and a Barney movie while we waited. We drove Mema home, had a little lunch then got in the van to head home. As we were driving home, Harper stopped watching his show and yelled to me to be careful and to watch the other cars so I wouldn’t bump into them. I told him I would be very careful and did my best to explain to him that what had happened hadn’t been Mema’s fault, but that another person had made a mistake.

For the rest of the day I made sure to talk to him about what had happened when he brought it up and did my best to reassure him that everything was okay. I also made sure to hug and kiss him a few thousand more times than I already do every day. I am ever so tahnkful that my baby wasn’t hurt in that wreck. My mind keeps doing the “what if” thing and I guess that’s just normal, but the “what if’s” were enough to give me bad dreams last night. I cannot imagine my life without that little guy nor would I want to have to experience it. I am ever so grateful that my mother-in-law is also okay and unharmed, she too is very important to me and we all love her very much. She is sore in her back, neck and shoulders and also seemed to hurt her foot somehow, but for the most part, she is okay. Harper has never exhibited any pain at all and for that I am also thankful.

He is definitely still thinking about the accident though. Today was his second day of preschool and as we got ready to leave he got a little upset and said “I only wanna ride in your car, momma. I don’t wanna bump in Mema’s car!” I told him he would be riding with me and that everything would be okay, but on the way there he was still asking me to drive slow and to stay away from the other cars. At one point he told me he was “pew-pewing” the other cars so they wouldn’t bump us. (I don’t know how to spell what he said but he was basically shooting the other cars with his pointer finger.) I suppose it is going to take a little time for him to work out how he feels about the accident and I suppose that is normal for anyone who’s been in an accident. I guess he didn’t see the other car flip (Mema said it flipped completely over landing back on it’s tires.) and that’s probably a good thing. I can’t imagine how terrifying that must have been to see much less experience.

At dinner last night Harper started to tell Landon about everything. He told him that Mema had bumped another car and that he had been scared. I chimed in and said “Did you cry a little bit too?” and he said “No, I cried a lot a bit!”. Ha ha!

I love that boy.