This Hellish Week

I will be getting back to telling and sharing the story of Little Prince’s arrival soon but as you can imagine, as I’ve mentioned more than once, life – normal, day-to-day life – in the Corner Table House is hectic. Honestly hectic is putting it mildly, chaotic is fairly often a more accurate description. It’s a chaotic that Heli Dad and I have become accustomed to, and though every once in a while, we need a day (or even just a few hours) to stop, breathe, and regroup, it’s a state of being that we’re good with. It is simply our life.

Sometimes, and lately those ‘sometimes’ seem to be occurring far too frequent, our happily hectic, chaotic existence becomes something just barely shy of too-much-to-take. In some cases, those instances that push our limits are extremely happy ones: such as Little Sister’s recent wedding (which I will post separately about as soon as I have a chance) and the mini-mountain getaway we got to experience while attending that event. In other cases, happy doesn’t come close to the word we’d use to describe our days.

Last week was one of those periods.

Last week was scary. No, it was terrifying. And though this week dawned with a much better outlook, ripples of that all-encompassing fear still beat in our minds and hearts.

No one is ever prepared for accidents when they happen. No one is ever sure how they’ll react when faced with an accident. Each one of us goes about our lives, our jobs, our daily routines, just doing what we have to do. Obviously, some people’s jobs and lives include higher risk factors and certain tasks that are, or can be extremely dangerous. Growing up on a farm you have to know that and understand, even at a young age, what those extremely dangerous tasks may be. You know that certain periods of the year are more fraught with risk than others, but as with everything in life, accidents can happen at any time, in any situation, and can hit even the most trained, most prepared, the most cautious of persons.

But even with all that, knowing all that, or maybe because we do, the words “there was an accident on the farm” have the power to stop the heart.

Over the years there have been all kinds mishaps – table saws (and hand saws to be fair) that get away from a person, kitchen knives that have a far sharper edge than you think, pitch forks driven to ground through flesh, and pets that never quite learn the lesson that against a motorized vehicle (of any size) they’re going to lose. All of them, small accidents that after the fact we can look back on and chuckle over. We have been fortunate through the years that our accidents have primarily been this sort. Last week was different. Just one word was enough for each of us to know precisely how dangerous, how serious, how affecting the situation was. It was enough for each of us to come running.

Because we’d been taught the dangers.

Because we know the risks.

And because just the day before, not even 24 hours earlier, three people died from the same thing – different circumstances, but the same thing.

"Ammonia."

On the farm we’ve used it in one form or another as a fertilizer for 40+ years. Us Farm Girls grew up knowing to stay clear, to stay aware, and to be extra-extra cautious when the ammonia tank was in the yard. All those working with it are even more aware and more cautious. But, like I said: accidents happen. One stupid, thoughtless act; one moment of distraction or less than necessary attention. That’s all it takes. That’s all it took.

And then after that single heartbeat of time, decades worth of instinct, training, and probably a good dose of adrenaline kicked in. All three of which certainly played together to save a life. But still.

I think all kids look up to their parents and imagine that they’re invincible. As we become adults (and parents ourselves) we know they’re just human – they’re not infallible, not invincible, not immortal. We all live with the reality that one day we’re going to see our parents fall ill, wear down with age, or whatever. But in our hearts always beats that child we once were and the belief that nothing can hurt our mom or dad.

I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals this year, most of it in ICU’s. Nothing ever prepares you for that first glimpse of a loved one in one those rooms. Nothing. Nothing in this life prepares you to sit at a bedside to wait, helplessly, because there’s nothing else that you can do besides wait. All the optimism in the world doesn’t stop your mind from considering the possible horrible outcomes that could be coming. Even while knowing that everything that can be done is being done, fear constantly rises up to choke you.

While I sat beside that ICU bed, or in the waiting room, or during those times I had to leave the hospital to care for my own children or to sleep, there was fear. Fear for my Dad’s life. Fear for how we (the Farm Family) would ever be able to go on, for how much our lives would forever be altered if we lost him. Fear of a world without him in it, of a life without him there.

I may be grown, I may have a husband and kids, and home of my own, but my dad is still the hero of my childhood nightmares – he saved me from Pennywise countless times, beat down raging, murderous Hulk Hogan-esque attackers, raced against fires, bombs, gunmen, tornados and more to save me in my always vivid, frequently terrifying dreams. And in real life, well in real life he’s always been my constant: one rock I know I can depend on, one shoulder I know I can lean on, one ear I know will always listen, one heart I know will always care. Imagining, even briefly, that we could lose that?

Well like I said: last week was terrifying.

This week, so far – so much better.

Five days in the ICU and hospital was more than enough for Dad (more commonly known here and in the Corner Table House as Grandpa) and, full truth, it was more than enough for the rest of us too. Walking into the ICU last Wednesday seeing him hooked up to everything, literally everything, and unconscious, probably one of the worst days of my life so far. Walking out of the hospital with him and my mom on Sunday afternoon, well that ranks right up there as one of my best days ever. The intermittent days between? Much as I might like to forget them I know they are forever burned into my memory.

This past Spring during the situation immediately following Little Prince’s birth (and yes the rest of that story is coming!) I was talking to my dad on the phone one night and he said to me “In all the years we’ve been farming, for the first time ever I feel like all the stuff that we need to be doing right now just isn’t important.” Last week when the possibility of losing him reared its ugly head, I think it’s safe to say that for my mom (aka Grandma), Big Sis, Little Sister, myself and all the rest of our family, we had a “nothing else is nearly as important as this” feeling. 

Because when it comes to family, especially your own family, that’s just the way it is. And just as he would move Heaven and Earth for us, we couldn’t not be there for him.