Saved Instead

When Katherine was not quite 3 years old, I gave birth to my 3^rd daughter. During the process, I lost a lot of blood and was quite unsteady on my feet for a time. Since I was not able to drive yet, the whole family went to my check-up a week after the birth and then to the Pharmacy for a prescription that I needed to strengthen me.

While in the store, my second daughter took her diaper off and her father grabbed her up and flew out the door and across the street to the car parked on the other side. Before the door closed, Katherine got through it and started after her father. I was carrying a new born (long before car seats) and unsteady, but I rushed as quickly as I could to the door and cried out to my small daughter to “Stop!” “Come back!” “Come back!”

As I approached the sidewalk, I saw the eighteen wheeler coming down the main street of the small town. There were no stop lights in that town and it was moving quite quickly toward my small child. Frantically I screamed “Come back here now!” Something in the tone of my voice caused her to respond against her own will to catch up with her daddy and sister. She turned and took one small step before the truck bumper hit her and threw her into the sidewalk at my feet.

Passers by hailed a police car and the officer put my bleeding child with a baby blanket on her head into his cruiser and I got in and we drove back to the hospital/clinic where she was rushed into a clean sterile room. She held onto me and I tried to comfort her.

A nurse had taken my baby and I followed the gurney with my little treasure into a room where the doctor started working with her immediately. In response to her pleading, I promised I would stay with her. She was so brave, so still. Other than that first cry when she was hit she had been quiet until the doctor began. He looked up and said “Are you okay?”

I told him I'd be fine. “Just take care of my little girl.”

He turned to the nurse and said, “She needs to go lay down.” I argued that I would be fine; Katherine began to wail. In the end, the nurse escorted me to a room with a bed and assured me that the doctor would take good care of my little one. Then she parked a nursery bed beside my bed and they laid my new born there close to me. The world went black and when I woke, the doctor came in and talked to me about the head injury.

As it was, I was in a good place and all three of us were well cared for. Katherine was doing fine. She had a concussion and several stitches up the back of her head. They would keep her there for observation. He assured me that someone big was looking out for us.

The police came in and informed me that the truck driver had been stopped on his way out of town. He didn't even know he'd hit her and was very shaken by the news. They asked a few simple questions and declared it an accident. The man's insurance would take care of the cost. They again told me how fortunate I was. If she had not turned and stepped back toward me, it would have been disastrous.

When they finally decided I was physically stable enough, they let me look in on my daughter before sending me and the rest of the family home. I walked in and touched her little face. Her eyes had blackened and her face had a few minor abrasions. I caught my breath at the sight. She peered at me through the injury and asked soflty “Mama, why did you hit me?” I was dumbfounded.

Of course, I corrected her understanding of what happened. She was fascinated by the fact that she had been hit by a truck and lived. I guess I had overplayed that as we lived around a lot of traffic.

It occurs to me that sometimes I cry to God about my pain and circumstance; I assume he has somehow dealt the blow. Yet it may just be that instead, he saved my life.