eMail #3 - June 17, 2000

Hi everybody.

I've had so many people ask for the latest, I thought I'd send another update.  This one will take a slightly different tack on things.  Many people have asked how I am doing - well, I'll just be real transparent.

Nine years and one month ago, my 19-year old sister Carrie was killed by a drunk driver.  My mom received that phone call -"...there's been an accident.  Can you come to the Hospital?"  My father (who was visiting us at the time), Jill and I were asleep when the call came to our apartment.  Jill and I ended up spending our first wedding anniversary in a funeral home.

Last Friday, I was in Anchorage at a client site when I got another phone call.  Basically saying - "Your wife and children have been in a serious car accident, call this Hospital."  So similar.  Immediate flashbacks.  Dialing that number seemed almost a slow - motion activity.  I was put on hold and transferred around for what seemed an eternity.  Finally, a woman came on and said "The Doctor will be with you in just a moment - and oh, by the way, your girls are adorable!"  I almost lost it right there- that was the first I had heard that they were even alive.  I asked about Jill and found out she was ok, but they told me she was in labor.  I got to speak with her.  But for about 10 minutes, I didn't know.  Part of me feared the worst - that those people I love and cherish the most were dead.  The thought of those
minutes still chills my spine and chokes me up.  My life sobered right there.

I "assigned" my brain the task of getting home and taking care of my family. That kept me from breaking down.  It's a way of postponing things.  I got to the Hospital and was able to spend time with Jill before going over to Evergreen hospital to be with Lydia - she had been throwing up blood.

On Monday, with Jill's mom coming into town and Jill finally being able to move around a a little easier on her own, I felt some of the weight of responsibility lifted.  I drove down to the Fall City fire station to pick up
Jill's belongings - driving right past the crash site.  Something began welling in me and when I got there, I had to put a lot of effort toward holding back and was just able to say "Thanks".  On the drive home, it all
hit me.  How close I had actually come to losing my precious family.    A worship song came to mind from church "Only You, Jesus" - specifically the opening lines "All I once held dear, built my life upon..."  I'm not ashamed to say the tears flowed heavily.  Surveying the damage, it would seem impossible that Jill, Lydia as well as our unborn baby are not all dead.  I shook with emotion and took a whole day to recover.  I'm still processing it all.

Enough about me.  How is the family?:

Jill.  I'm more concerned than she is about a few things.  I will say this - she gets exhausted quickly.  And she still has several extremely sore muscles which make many normal activities painful.  The external injuries are healing fine, but the muscles and ligaments are taking their time.  But here's what concerns me: she has had some trouble breathing deeply.  The doctor took a chest X-ray and found an unusual spot on her heart, which she believes is pregnancy induced - since the diaphragm does squish everything. But that doesn't comfort me.  Please keep her heart's health in your prayers.  We expect that the baby will be born within the next two weeks.
With our first baby, labor was accompanied by a severe rise in Jill's blood pressure - causing the doctors to have a crash cart ready in case of
seizures.  Call me a worry-wart, but I'm concerned.

Lydia: She had her stitches taken out on Friday.  What a trooper - whimpering only when the doctor pulled out a hair that had been stitched into the wound.  Our friend Carol touched up her hair to help conceal the bald spot around the wound and the area where we had to cut off the "dreadlock" from the dried blood and stitches.  Her face continues to heal, but she still has a black eye.  Her spirits are great.

Maranda: Her physical wounds have healed nearly completely.  However, she has experienced nightmares and doesn't want to take her hospital tags off. We think she feels left out of the "injured" category because she wasn't seriously hurt.  We're calling the tags her "bravery bracelets".

The baby: Sophia or Alexander seems to be doing great.  Kicks a gob, which doesn't speed up the healing on the underside of Jill's belly where the seatbelt bruised her.  Nor does it make it any easier since she has to go to the bathroom so often and getting up is a long process with her sore muscles.

The accident: information gleaned from both the firemen and our friends Bob and Lori, indicate that when Jill pulled away from the guard rail, the force was so great, she broke the window with her head and became temporarily semi-conscious.  Another "interesting item": When the drunk killed my sister, we were told that oftentimes drunks don't get as injured because their bodies are "loose" while their victims bodies are "tense".  Well, since she had blacked out, Jill was pretty "loose" when her belly slammed into the steering wheel - the one Maranda says the angels were holding.  If Jill had been "tight", more injury may have occurred.    Anyway - we think her black out is why Jill went straight off the road and doesn't remember anything until she woke up with her hair caught between the broken window and ground.  It turns out that after hitting the tree and crashing down on the upper drivers side, the van rolled over landing on it's roof.  This explains why Jill said she felt like all her body's weight was on her head. The bystanders who came to help, rolled the van onto the driver's side allowing Jill to free her head.

When the roof and support beam slammed over Lydia, it cut into her skull and pinned her down.  Maranda says the angels kept Lydia from "going all the way out the window".  Maybe they kept that metal from coming down just an inch more - it would've penetrated her brain then.  Based on the angles of the road layout, if Jill had left the roadway less than a foot to the south, the tree would've crushed the seat Lydia and Maranda were in instead of the one behind them.  And just a foot more and it would've been a head-on collision with the tree.

Further, if the car had been going faster, it would've slid more, and since Jill's long hair was blown out the broken window, and it twisted her head back, I fear it would've snapped her neck.

I apologize.  I'm continually amazed at "how close" it was.  I rationalize it during the day, but at night, the "what-ifs" and "almosts" haunt me.

I hope you don't mind the rambling.

One final note: one of my least favorite things to do on this planet is car shop.  And I REALLY don't like having to rush it.  So we were praying for God to handle our auto-needs.  Three car seats won't fit into my car.  The next day Jurgen and Elaine, a couple from our Sunday School class, emailed us that his Mom was in Germany until September and would we like to borrow their extra Astro Van until then?  Awesome.  What an immediate, specific answer to prayer.  This allows us to get our financing in order and buy the appropriate van instead of whatever's available.

We've picked up new, top of the line car seats for the girls and appreciated the loaners.

Love to you all - Phil