In The Blink Of An Eye

Flickering Lights

Now... Come to think of it, I wish I had not said anything. She was going to be a big sister and Jake was going to be a father and I was going to have another baby but maybe I spoke way too soon. After all, I should have gone for my ultrasound first before I told anybody the news. I was just way too excited and I couldn't have waited any longer. One thing I have learned over the years is that no matter how much control you think you have over your life or how much you plan on things, life may have other plans and God is always in a lot more control than you are. No matter how much you make plans for your life and how you imagine your life to be, all that can change as fast as you can blink. I've seen that happen before it's not like I was unfamiliar with it. But this time, I got a little carried away. I should have known better!

Let me explain...

I told my daughter and Lilly that we were having a baby and I don't know which one of them was more excited. My daughter was so happy that she began to cry. Sunday came around and Jake and I decided to call my dad and siblings early in the morning and tell them the great news. Of course as you can imagine they were all ecstatic and so happy for us. I mean it's understandable...how else would they be? That same day we went over to some of our friends' houses and called others that weren't home to tell them the news. When I tell you they were all so excited and happy that they kept asking a hundred questions which I didn't have the answers to. There were questions like what sex is the baby? When is the due date? Do you have a name picked out? Are you going to stay and live in Duskwood? Will you have a baby shower, what about a gender reveal? OMG!!! I was about to go crazy thinking about all the things we really had to sit down and talk about.

Let's fast forward to the important day, Monday.

We woke up early Monday morning all really excited to go see the baby for the first time on the ultrasound. Lilli was so impatient to go that she kept running around the house asking if we were ready yet. One thing about pregnancy is that you always feel like you have to use the restroom to pee. So as you can imagine it took me a good fifteen minutes to decide if I was actually done using the restroom or not. Finally after what seemed like forever we were out of the room and in the car ready to go.

The crazy thing about life is how one minute you're planning one thing and the next minute your whole life can change. When I woke up this morning I had an idea of what the day was going to be like, at least I thought I did. We were all excited to see the baby for the first time and to hear the heartbeat. After the ultrasound we planned on going to the store to get a few things for the baby and then that afternoon we were supposed to go to Jessy and Richy's house where the rest of our friends were meeting us for a small celebration before we headed on our honeymoon. We had so many plans and expectations for that day. The one thing we never in a million years expected was what happened next!

Everything was going smoothly. Jake was driving the car as I sat next to him with Lilli sitting behind me in the back seat, the same way we had done a thousand times before. We had Lilli's favorite song playing on the radio and we both laughed and sang along with her. We must have been twenty-five minutes from the house and about maybe three to four minutes away from the doctors office when out of nowhere a huge pickup truck slammed directly into our car. The last thing I remember is reaching my arm to the back to hold Lilli's leg and telling Jake "I can't wait to see this new little bundle of joy" when we got slammed by the truck. Everything from that second went completely blank. It was pitch black and extremely quiet! Twenty-five minutes...that's all it took to change not only the plans we had made for that day but the plans we had made for our future lives. Twenty-five minutes!!! I've seen lives change in even shorter times, the same way mine did a couple of times. However, this time things were different. Not only because of how things happened but the circumstances that followed after.