Value of "Being Raised"

Excuse me while I get sappy for a minute.  Maybe two.  No more than five.  Promise.

Have you met my folks?

Have I ever told you how lucky I am to have been raised by two such people as these?  

I wasn't going to write this post.  But I can't stop detailing the memories in my head so I figure I just as well....

A year ago on Mar 17th, around 7-8 in the evening, my Mom called me.  Mike is a volunteer firefighter and she knew we often had our scanner on.  She said, pretty frazzled (for her - mom doesn't frazzle easily), "I had to call the ambulance for your dad - he was in a 4 wheeler accident.  Knew you'd hear the call go through on your scanner.  Call your sisters." 

A few more details, though she didn't have many, and that was it.  

I quickly relayed to Mike and he went out the door.  We love the heart of our local ambulance crew but sometimes they can use extra hands.  Because Mike has trained with them before, we knew they'd let him help if he could be useful.  I had enough 'quick thinking' to figure the accident was in a field, not on the road, and spring = mud + it was a cold evening (frozen mud = ruts) so we thought extra hands might be helpful.

After touching base with the sisters I called a cousin/friend, Brea, to come be with my children until my in-laws came back in town.  The children and I prayed for Papa and then I flew out the door for Andrea and Vance to pick me up.  What were we going to do?  I dunno.  Be there.  Sometimes there is no greater comfort than being there. 

We arrived at the house and saw the pasture that they were working in.  Of course the ambulance couldn't get down there with the mud and ruts so they were hauling Dad out in a pick-up truck {God bless country living}.  

The jest of the accident was that he had been in the pasture with the cattle, I believe trying to get a bull out, and things got a bit physical and turned his 4 wheeler over - on top of him.  Being pinned under a 4 wheeler is no picnic.  Being pinned under a 4 wheeler for upwards of an hour or more in the biting cold...well, that's less of a picnic than the previous scenario.  Because of Mom's awareness, as she was in the house making supper, she realized she couldn't hear the bike running and hadn't for sometime.  He was supposed to be back in the house at 7 so at 5 till she knew it was weird that she didn't hear the 4 wheeler.  I suppose it has something to do with being married for 30+ years...but I think in her gut she knew to be worried.  She called my uncle to help look - he thought he heard Dad calling cows (of course he was hollering to get attention) and again Mom's farm smarts told her he wouldn't be calling cows and that it was weird that the cows in the field were all standing around like they were watching something (they were!).  They estimated he laid under the bike around an hour and a half and he thought he might have blacked out once.

Uncle Henry called his wife and a cousin/neighbor for warm blankets, had mom call the ambulance and threw the 4 wheeler off Dad (ouch).  I can't imagine being the "first one on scene" and am glad Mom was not alone.

So, there we stand, my sister and I, as they bring Dad out of the pasture.  Let me tell you something...there is no greater feeling than to hear the voice of the one you are worried about...consciousness is not something to be taken lightly.   There was concern of breaks in his pelvis/lower spine but the biggest concern was his core body temperature.  94* in the ambulance, but by that time he'd already been warmed some with the blankets and coats when he was found. 

Dad being dad, he attempted to make jokes as we shined flashlights and they loaded him in the ambulance.  I jaunted to the house to make sure the oven/stove top was off, grabbed clothes for dad on a whim and headed back out to ride with Andrea and Vance to the hospital (Mike drove the ambulance).  There was talk of landing the helicopter at the golf course but because of the cloud cover it couldn't fly.  On the way to the hospital I checked in with younger sis, Lauren.  She lives an hour away and had started our direction as soon as she heard of the accident so we directed her to meet us at the hospital instead of the farm.  She was shaken.  We all were.  I hated that Andrea and I were together and for the time being, she was alone (though Lance was with her).  

Off we trooped to the hospital.  I firmly and politely let the front desk gal know that we didn't want to sit in the front waiting room with people who needed medical attention - we wanted taken back to the family room where we could alternate seeing Dad, being with Mom, etc.  Thankfully she was kind.  {How did I know about the back waiting room?...as Dad would say "this wasn't our first rodeo."  We'd walked this road in the middle of the night after he had a motorcycle accident that called us to the ER.}

Your mind can play a lot of tricks on you while you wait to see "the patient" with your own eyes.  It's times like this I'm ever so thankful for sisters and my husband and brothers-in-law and mom to share the journey {be that as it may} with.  

We joke now about how Lauren (who was finishing her nursing degree) drove the nurse crazy with her comments regarding her lack of hand sanitizing/overall cleanliness practices.  We laugh at Andrea who found a broom and started sweeping up the piles of cow manure and mud that came off Dad's chore gear and clothes when they removed them.  We chuckle at Lance who'd had a big day and was quite the entertainment for us all in the family waiting room.  As God's grace would have it Dad was discharged the same night from the ER with no breaks.  That's not luck, my friends. 

So why this walk down memory lane?  Just to revisit a hard night?

Not exactly.

To help you put into perspective our family and what they mean to me.  

My mom and I were talking about my growing up years on the way home from Natalee's ENT appointment the other day.  I feel like one of the most blessed people on earth to have been raised the way I was raised.  My sisters and I have talked about this often...how we were taught respect, perseverance, and love for family.  Sure, we like to chuckle and laugh about memories like Dad's catch phrases {"after this..."} but it's only because we hear them in ourselves as parents now.

Nope - we might not have been the coolest kids at school.  We didn't have the name brand of everything.  Our house was an old farm house full of love and memories and cracked walls and uneven floors.  But - we weren't drug from activity to activity, we got to go out and get dirty, we experienced new life every spring, we knew the value of hard work.  By watching our parents, we were taught to not give up.  We had expectations to meet with consequences if we failed.  

I wish I could journal all the memories that often roll through my head from my time in that old farm house.  Sometimes when one pushes forward and I share it with Mike I think he looks at me and thinks "for REAL!?"

Yes, for real...and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.  We are among the blessed - to have had two parents who stuck out the good fight to intentionally raise children with character.  

So, Mom and Dad - here's to you.  For continuing to "raise" us up, pushing us to think for ourselves, but always being in our back corner. 

I've heard Dad comment before that Mom had to do more of the "raising" of us because he worked too much.  Not selfishly worked - just that combination of a full time job and a full time farm.  I do have to say that I disagree though...we were raised by a terrific team.  The kind of team that teaches you blow dry calves in the kitchen through a winter storm, bottle feed lambs in the barn...a team who teaches you how to cook {mom} and eats it anyways when you try solo and fail {dad}.  I could go on, but I'm sure I'm pushing the 5 minutes on my "sappy essay" so I'll have to exit and save some memories for another day.

Here's hoping Mike and I can be 1/2 the team in raising our children that I had growing up.