I have been estranged from my dad for a couple of years now. And I thought long and hard about using the word estranged, because it seemed so harsh and dramatic to me. I looked it up in the dictionary and found the definition.
estrange: to make hostile, unsympathetic, or indifferent; alienate. To remove from an accustomed set of associations. Verb refers to a disruption of a bond of love, friendship, or loyalty. Two persons whose harmonious relationship has been replaced by hostility or indifference.
And yes, that is our relationship in a nutshell. I see my dad occasionally but have not seen his family since all of this began about 5 years ago when my parents divorced after 30 years of marriage. So a family reunion around people I hadn't seen in years and a visit to my father I had to share with them was not something I was looking forward to. Needless to say I was on edge, as I had been for weeks about it, and not feeling so great. So there is a lot of emotion behind this day and this post, just so you are warned...
The afternoon began well. That side of our family have been a part of my life since I was born so I know them all very well and it was nice to see them. We have several four-wheelers at the farm (pictured below) and I spent several hours taking my kids out on it riding around.
After dinner Pat and I were going to take Big Boy out together. Sissy wanted to ride with some of her cousins on the Gator so I walked accross the grass to get her situated while Pat and T got on. I was sitting Sissy down when I heard my sister SCREAM my name, and it was filled with terror. I turned around and saw the four-wheeler several feet from where I had left it and my child wrapped up, feet not touching the ground, in a barbed wire fence.
Things get really blurry here. I obviously ran as fast as I could to him and by that time Pat had reached him. I'm pretty sure I yanked him out of Pat's arms and I could see the blood, which seemed everywhere. His shirt was ripped in several places. I sat down right there on the ground and held him while we both cried. I have never heard T cry like that. I felt like I was having a heart attack, or something worse. I could not breathe. I'm not sure how I sat there before someone had us walk inside the cabin.
When we got inside the cabin we were able to look at T more closely. He looked awful to me. His nose was bleeding and there just seemed to be blood all over his face. As we look back, it was not actually blood all over his face- it did not wash off. It was just the raw, scratched skin. He had several bad barbs- the worst being on his hand and back of his head. The one on his hand was ripped open- you could see the inside of it. I was BEYOND hysterical at this point. I was screaming at everything, I was so mad I had let him ride that vehicle. I was so mad that I wasn't on it with him.
Well two of my aunts are nurses so luckily they were there to look at the wounds. It was agreed that he could probably use some stitches, however they thought that it would be more traumatic for him to get the stitches than for us to watch the cuts and see how it went. After we decided there were no internal injuries or anything life threatening, I got more of the story. I had not even noticed in all the craziness that Pat was pretty badly injured too. While T's wounds were deep and short, Pat had long, deep scratches on his arms and chest. Apparently after they got on the four-wheeler, at the exact second Pat was putting it in gear, T pushed the "gas" button (just an easily reachable button right in front of him) and they jerked forward and went THROUGH the barbed wire fence. And I mean, the wire broke. Pat went one way still on the vehicle and T was completely seperated from him going the other way.
I can only think of one other time when I felt like this- when Sissy was 2 she had a febrile seizure and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. There is literally NO FEELING IN THE WORLD like when your child is hurt. I can't even describe it, but I know a lot of you know the exact feeling I mean. It is a horrific terror that I would imagine is similar to being shot in the leg. Okay, maybe not, but that is how I felt. I was completely numb. Even after I knew he would be okay I still felt a huge depression.
It was not a pleasant evening to follow. We needed to go get the supplies to care for him. Well since we were out in the country we had to drive 45 minutes into a town with an open Wal-Mart. I went in (and this was a site to see- I had my "family reunion" shirt on and it was covered in blood) and bought literally every first aid supply they had. I didn't even have any Motrin on me so I bought EVERYTHING. Well, unfortunately our hotel was another 30 minutes in the opposite direction. My poor tired (and injured) children watched Toy Story in the car as we drove our almost hour and a half for supplies.
When we got back to the hotel my aunts had advised us to bathe him and clean the wounds. Thank goodness T likes showers- we were able to coax him in with Pat. They were in there for a long time and Pat was able to, very softly, clean him up. We were both shocked, like I mentioned before, that no blood was wiping off- his skin was just scratched so bad.
I have a lot of guilt and hurt feelings about that day. I felt like the whole thing was my fault. I felt like I was not understood- like my hysteria was unwarrented. But I don't dwell on that for long. Sure, some of me was a little dramatic. But when it comes to my children I will always give myself a pass. It was the worst feeling I have ever felt. Since we've been home we have actually learned that 2 young people in the Wichita area have died in the last month due to a barbed wire fence injury- one driving a golf cart through it and the other a similar vehicle. The image of my child dangling in that fence will never leave my brain, but we are so lucky. We are so lucky that our child made it through it, without even a trip to the ER. We thank God for protecting our Baby Boy.
The next morning after it happened, I left the Band Aids on, it was so gross:
You can see how red his face was, and if you look close you can see other scratches-he had one right above his eye. You'll notice, too, that it wraps back around his head where one of the worst cuts was.
What a trooper:
This is him 3 days later. I had to really be persuaded to go on to Colorado- I wanted to just come home. But we went on, had a wonderful time, and I loved seeing my Big Boy so happy.
