The Smith Journey: a minute..

"In a minute." Have you ever said this and "a minute" turned into five minutes or thirty minutes and felt like a flash? Well, when there is a crisis, that "minute" can feel like hours, especially when it involves people you love with all of your heart. Things can change in an instant..literally a minute and that is what happened this weekend with two of my favorite people who are very near and dear to me. And nothing can happen to these two, because they are some of the only few who know how to keep me from going crazy, which isn't very far off from now!! The outcomes are fine but getting there was the scary part. As I told my Mama, if things don't get better, I will need a one way ticket to loony ville, soon!! haha

It all started Sunday morning when Kris got home from work around 8:30. He said, "I am going to take my jacket off, so don't be alarmed, I have been in the ER." What..ER?!? You are kidding me, right?!? Basically, what had happened was...they were fighting a house fire at two in the morning, and he was trying to pull an air conditioner unit from a window to vent the room and the glass fell out and a piece went into his arm. Now at the time, he didn't know it, he said it felt like something hit him in the arm and then he felt water running down his arm, or so he thought. They didn't have the hose!! Then he realized he was bleeding. Upon further investigation, they found that a piece of glass had lodged into his left forearm and broke off. He lost a lot of blood, went into shock, passed out and was then rushed to the ER. They took an x-ray, removed the glass, took another x-ray to make sure they got it all and cleaned it out. The cut was about an inch and a half deep and 1/2 inch wide. It was too deep to put in stitches, so it will have to heal from the inside out. They gave him IV fluids and antibiotics and sent him home with antibiotics, pain meds and bacitracin (misspelled?) ointment and told him to keep it bandaged to stop the bleeding. HE IS OKAY, just scared the heck out of me!! Which is why he told his firemen buddies, "Unless I am dying, whatever you do, don't call my wife!!" He knows how I freak out and I was home alone with the girls, so there wouldn't have been anything I could do, but worry and STRESS... He says that it is sore and hurts when he moves it a lot, but he will go back in two days and get it checked out again. But don't worry about him, he has "Dr. Madeline" taking care of him and making sure no one bothers him. "Shhhh, Daddy's seeping!" She didn't even want to flush the toilet yesterday, because it might wake Daddy...she is too much!! All I can do is laugh to keep from crying..he is very lucky/blessed because it could have been much worse. God is so good to us, He really is!!

Now on to my second heart attack of the day..we went out to Kris's grandmother's for lunch Sunday afternoon and headed home about 5:30. The weather was bad, but nothing out of the ordinary. Little did I know that a huge tornado was tearing up Hattiesburg, where my sister lives! I had given Chandler a bath and was getting her dressed when my phone rang and Kris said it was Kimberly. I said that I would call her back when I was finished bathing the girls, so we didn't answer it. I was then dressing Madeline, and Kris came down the hall reading a text that stated, "We need volunteers to go to Hattiesburg for search and rescue." My heart dropped as I left Madeline standing on the counter to get to my phone. Those were the longest minutes ever!! Kimberly didn't answer until what felt like the fifteen ring, an eternity! The first words out of my mouth were, "ARE YOU OKAY?!" She was fine just shaken up and no damage to her house. She said she was watching TV that was going in and out, and Dino started barking and growling like something was coming..boy is he smart! ha She went to her carport door that faces Southern's campus about a block away, and she saw the tornado and it was coming straight for her house!! She said that she could hear it and watched as it tore up everything in it's path..she just knew she was going to get blown away! "We're not in Hattiesburg anymore, Dino!!" By the grace of God, she and her house were spared, but Southern's campus was not and neither was a neighboring school, Oak Grove nor the town of Petal. It's like it just picked spots to touch down and destroy.


Kimberly didn't take this picture, but can you imagine what it looked like in person?!? Looks scary enough, to me!! It was said to be a mile wide!!

I still have a knot in my stomach knowing how much could've changed in a minute with my husband and sister..and neither had any control over things. Brings tears to my eyes about just how precious life really is. You could say that they are lucky, I will say that they are blessed and that God was watching over them. It is sickening to look at pictures and footage of the damage on Southern's campus, which is where I attended undergraduate school and spent five years of my life working at the DuBard School for Language Disorders. Please pray for the families affected by this devastating destruction and don't take minutes for granted, because you never know when things will change.. Also, please continue to pray that surgery will in fact take place on Friday, because I seriously don't know how much more this Mama can take!