August 22, 2002

8/22

I was feeding Joseph his breakfast. Through the kitchen window, I saw that Jay had pulled up. I certainly wasn't expecting him, since today is a school day. I wouldn't normally see him til about 1pm. I was thinking that maybe he'd forgotten his books or something. When he came into the house, he saw me, started sobbing, and just held me. I had NO idea what was going on. Did he get fired? Did something bad happen at work? Did he have a car accident? The car looked okay. Jay rarely cries. His emotion just doesn't really come out that way. He's cried when our children were born, when his grandfather almost died during open heart surgery, when his brother was an idiot (when I say idiot, his brother can manage to REALLY screw things up), and when he thought his brother had died (his brother was having an emergency appendectomy, and his mother's cell phone died as she was talking to him, and she said something that sounded like "died". That's it. Just the truly major stuff.

Finally we went outside, and he said that he just had the worst scare in his life. And then started crying again. He was on the freeway, doing about 80mph, in the fast lane, going with the flow of morning traffic. He was on his way to school. A huge white tarp flew over the median, and landed on the car, all the way across the windshield completely covering it. In the middle of rush hour, in the fast lane, and he couldn't see a thing. H had the tarp in the car. He didn't want it landing on someone else's car. It was huge. He didn't panic. He slowed rather than braked, and put his hazards on, and made his way to the shoulder. He didn't hit anyone, and no one hit him. That's amazing in and of itself. He said he made it home on auto pilot. He said that all he could think of was me. What would I do if something happened to him. What if he never saw me again. He was totally shaken up, had a tick, and was having trouble unlocking his jaw, since he had it clenched so tight. He even had wet his pants, it was that scary. You have to understand something. Jay is a former marine. He knows how to kill people, and blow things up. Literally. He's been shot at. Literally. He was trained not to be shaken up by things. I've never seen him shaken up at all, unless it's been a family member involved, and there was nothing he could do. He was scared. I felt so awful for him. He called his mom. That made him feel better. I also told him to give Joseph a bath (he gets in with him and they play together). It was a simple, easy happy thing to do. When they got out and dressed, they went to the park together. I think he's feeling better now, but he was emotionally exhausted and so he went to bed, since he has to work tonight.

I think sometimes God sends things to shake you up so you reprioritize. I think Jay was getting a bit too complacent - letting me take on all the kids' duties, etc. Playing his games, going to bed. I think this woke him up to the fact that, you need to enjoy your family before they're gone. I'm sorry he went through this scare, and I'm so so so thankful that nothing happened to him. But I'm also glad that it made him think about his family, and what's important to him. Joseph was so happy to have his daddy all to himself. Maybe this was one of God's 2x4s to the head. But man, I don't even want to think about what could have happened. No. Don't want to think about it.

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1:21 p.m.