1 : to stupefy especially by a blow : stun
2 : to dazzle with light
It was quite an afternoon around here. While picking A & B up from school, I found out that a neighborhood mom passed away late last night from spinal meningitis. It was very sudden. She had a headache and neck pain yesterday, went to the ER and never came home. I didn't know her well. I'd met her a few times on the playground and it was only when I heard the names of her daughters that I put the name with the face. It left me shaken to think about her two young daughters suddenly motherless and her husband facing raising these girls alone.
As I came home and put laundry into the dryer, I was thinking about how bad a headache would have to be for me to go to the ER. I get headaches all the time - some of them fairly severe - but I've only been to the doctor once for a headache and that was because it interfered with my vision. As I was contemplating this, I remembered that J had told me when I spoke with him that his neck started hurting this morning, giving him a horrible headache that had not responded to medication. Feeling more than a touch crazy, I called him and told him to please check the symptoms for meningitis online and go to the ER if they applied.
Now, J is a bit of a hypochondriac, but hearing me think this way was a little startling for him. I explained why I wanted him to check and while we were still on the phone, a large mirror that has been above our mantle for more than six years fell crashing to the ground. The noise was horrific, the mess stunning. I ended the call quickly, ushered the girls back out of the room and started picking up large shards of glass.
If the sudden death of an acquaintance wasn't enough to leave me dazed, the shattered mirror probably would have been. But there was still more to come.
J called on his way home to say that he was nearly home, but was turning around to head to a mechanic's shop because he didn't think his car would make it home. While it hadn't been acting odd previously, the check engine light was now flashing and the car threatened to die anytime he had to stop at a light. I had just returned home from dropping off a friend of A's who came over to play after school, but loaded the three girls back in to the van to meet J at the shop.
After an embarrassingly simple meal of mac & cheese for my children, J & I put them to bed and watched Lost. Tonight's episode didn't do much to clear my dazed head. So I'll go to bed still slightly reeling from the day. But before I do, I'll kiss each sleeping girl in her bed before wrapping myself around my husband to fall asleep. Who knows what tomorrow might bring?
2 : to dazzle with light
It was quite an afternoon around here. While picking A & B up from school, I found out that a neighborhood mom passed away late last night from spinal meningitis. It was very sudden. She had a headache and neck pain yesterday, went to the ER and never came home. I didn't know her well. I'd met her a few times on the playground and it was only when I heard the names of her daughters that I put the name with the face. It left me shaken to think about her two young daughters suddenly motherless and her husband facing raising these girls alone.
As I came home and put laundry into the dryer, I was thinking about how bad a headache would have to be for me to go to the ER. I get headaches all the time - some of them fairly severe - but I've only been to the doctor once for a headache and that was because it interfered with my vision. As I was contemplating this, I remembered that J had told me when I spoke with him that his neck started hurting this morning, giving him a horrible headache that had not responded to medication. Feeling more than a touch crazy, I called him and told him to please check the symptoms for meningitis online and go to the ER if they applied.
Now, J is a bit of a hypochondriac, but hearing me think this way was a little startling for him. I explained why I wanted him to check and while we were still on the phone, a large mirror that has been above our mantle for more than six years fell crashing to the ground. The noise was horrific, the mess stunning. I ended the call quickly, ushered the girls back out of the room and started picking up large shards of glass.
If the sudden death of an acquaintance wasn't enough to leave me dazed, the shattered mirror probably would have been. But there was still more to come.
J called on his way home to say that he was nearly home, but was turning around to head to a mechanic's shop because he didn't think his car would make it home. While it hadn't been acting odd previously, the check engine light was now flashing and the car threatened to die anytime he had to stop at a light. I had just returned home from dropping off a friend of A's who came over to play after school, but loaded the three girls back in to the van to meet J at the shop.
After an embarrassingly simple meal of mac & cheese for my children, J & I put them to bed and watched Lost. Tonight's episode didn't do much to clear my dazed head. So I'll go to bed still slightly reeling from the day. But before I do, I'll kiss each sleeping girl in her bed before wrapping myself around my husband to fall asleep. Who knows what tomorrow might bring?
5 comments:
My neck still hurts and we've yet to hear about the car from the mechanic...
Me: the Check Engine light is flashing
Mr. Briscoe: The Check Engine light is flashing?
Me: Yes.
Mr. Briscoe: Oh, that's bad when it flashes.
Me: Great.
...but let me tell you, I treasure my wife and kids. I am so grateful to our good friends that come around us and help us get kids to and from school when we're minus a car, and it's nice how God blesses you in the midst of life's troubles. I pray that the husband of the woman who had spinal meningitis has good friends who will come around him and their family.
J
I found myself with a day much like yours yesterday. Certainly makes me find the gratitude and note the very precious and dearly fragile nature of it all. Yes, it does.
I have yet to read your story below, as I'm only getting snippets of computer time lately, so that's why you haven't heard from me (here) lately.
Also, I only knew M as an aquaintance as well. Just talking on the playground occasionally and I took pictures of her eldest several years ago at playschool.
It has me dazed as well. Both David and I have had somewhat swollen throats without a whole lot of other symptoms, and it made me wonder as well.
I can't even wrap my mind around how her children and husband will deal with this. It's beyond comprehension.
I agree that it's beyond comprehension. If I try to contemplate how I would function without J, my heart begins to race and I start to feel sick. So, I just don't go there. It's a little easier for me to think about what he would do without me. We would both need just tons of help from friends for a very long time. I can't really envision what that might be like. It's staggering.
I'd love to hear what you think about the story when you get a bit more screen time!
I remember feeling like this in Denver after a co-worker's 26 year-old husband died suddenly of a drug interaction 6 months after they were married. It was so frightening, even though my husband is in what many might consider a more "dangerous" career than others. Amanda's son Silas' death also hit me this way, and he still helps me to remember to treasure every day I have with those I love. I will be thinking and praying for your friends' family.
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