and once again, you never know when you are going to end up in the emergency room....

Let me just say, first of all, that every one is all right. But what a day. Oh dear. These five girls wanted to go out and about, Black Friday Shopping. I vetoed leaving before dawn, but finally gave in and took them in the early afternoon. We went to Target and got a few things for our Secret Santas, then to Kohls...then they started rumbling about being hungry. I wanted to go to the fabric store and get some 70% off fabric...and I knew they would be bored silly in there and ask me if I was almost done a few hundred times, or start fooling around in there...so I suggested they drop me off there and go to the mall right across the road and get a snack at the food court. Oh joy, they didn't mind doing that at all....I gave them a twenty dollar bill, and blissfully walked into the fabric store...one of the only places I love going to all by my lonesome.

I picked out some of this and a little bit of that, and stood there waiting for my turn at the cutting table...when Evelyn and Kathryn came storming into the store shouting about an accident, a car crash....they were extremely loud and upset, so I left my cart there and left the store with them. Right on the highway near the store....there was our little Nissan, all smashed up, I kept asking if everyone was okay and they kept saying yeah, they thought so...then I saw Suzanne. Her face, it was all bloody, and she was in total shock. Her glasses were gone, and she looked like a zombie. Blood was streaming from her nose, and her face was all scraped up. I screamed for someone to call 911, and the lady in the car behind them shouted that she just did....

Let me say again that they are all okay. But at that moment, I did not know that. They were hit so hard that little car was dragged at least 300 feet from the intersection. The fire truck came, and then the ambulance, and the police. Questions and questions, and they were evaluating Suzanne....she had no idea where she was or how she got there, so they strapped her to the board and put her in the ambulance. I went with her. She is 13 years old. I had to go with her. The other girls were in varying degrees of hysterics. I'm sure their lives had flashed before their eyes, and seeing their sister all bloody was traumatic. I was torn, of course I had to go with Suze, but all of my Mom senses were screaming at me to comfort the other girls...Evelyn had called Paul, he was on his way, but we don't exactly live right next store to the mall, so it was going to be a while.

The police were still there, and the pizza shop man said they could wait in there. So off I went with Suze in the back of the ambulance, leaving half of my heart there with the other sobbing girls. If you think perhaps I over exaggerate this....nope.

Suzanne was in shock, she couldn't remember anything. She was trembling and shaking and crying for Kathryn. She kept asking if Kathryn was okay, and then saying she just woke up and thought she was having a bad dream, but could not remember going shopping at all.

Anyway...Emily was working at the hospital we went to, so she came down to visit us in the Emergency Room. Long story short: no broken bones, no stitches needed....the doctors told Suze she was a lucky girl, one of them whispered, "blessed girl". Her nose is very bruised and scraped...her face is scraped raw, and her neck is all raw from contact with the airbag.

But she walked out of there, and we are thankful. The car is gone, probably, but the girls are okay.

My feelings right now: the knowledge in the forefront of my consciousness that life is fragile. That others go through days like today and are not as fortunate. I am thankful my girls are okay. I love them to pieces, they are my life.

Our shopping loot is still in the car, we will go pick it up on Monday. It doesn't seem very important. Suzanne's glasses are somewhere, broken probably.

But we are home, and we are okay. And, we are thankful....

Yesterday: