Monday, April 1, 2013

April 1st

I can't even remember if I've posted at all about the car accident I was in as a child. It was such a big deal, but it is just history today.

But sometimes it is nice to reflect and share part of my past. Sharing helps create connections, and I feel the need for more connections in my life.

Seventeen years ago today, I was in a car accident that drastically changed my life. Not just my life, but the lives of my family in very significant ways.

I was eleven-years-old and it was the Monday of spring break. Aaron was in college, but at home that semester working at a local machine shop as a co-op student. Janelle was a freshman in college, living away in her dorm on campus, but only a 45 minute drive away and so she was back to visit now and then. Olivia was almost two and the cutest baby I ever did know. I was in 5th grade that year and it was a good year for the most part, despite both Aaron and Janelle being gone most of the time. Olivia could walk and was learning to talk and she was fun to play with as long as she was the boss and I was okay letting her be the boss of the activity. I remember being thrilled the one time when Mom was gone and she came to me for comfort - it made me feel so loved that she wanted me!

That year was no so great with going to my Dad's on the weekends without Aaron or Janelle to go with me. Up until that point in my life, I had spent little to no time with just me and my dad and I wasn't quite sure what to do. It wasn't my favorite, but it could have been worse.

The details of some events are a bit fuzzy after all this time. I've slept since then.

I do remember that I was with my dad for the weekend before the accident, Palm Sunday weekend, and that I made my first communion at St. Denis Church that Sunday. I remember that I had packed a jean skirt and pink shirt to wear to church that weekend and that I realized when we sat down in the pew at church just how much I had missed the boat when it came to my outfit. My cousin Katrina (who is four-years younger to the day) was wearing a modified version of her mother's wedding dress. Not only was I four years behind the eight-ball in receiving the Eucharist, I was dressed like a schlubb in comparison. But what could I do about it at that point? Nothing. I didn't even know little girls got so dressed up like that for their first communion. It blared at me everything that was wrong with my life that I could do nothing about. My parents were divorced, didn't get along, didn't belong to the same church and so I was always the kid who didn't fit in and needed additional explanation of who was there and what the situation was. Not that I wanted to be like everybody else all the time and in all ways, but I really wished I could have been what I envisioned as "normal" or "cool" at least some of the time. Up until that point, I had always felt lost at a Catholic Church, like I didn't fit in. I only ever went to mass with my dad and there were all these secret codes that I was clueless about that I would sit and wonder about in frustration every time I was at mass.

to be continued...

1 comment:

  1. I'm loving hearing this from your perspective. We didn't talk about it much then, just needed to keep going one day at a time to make it through, and now, well, we have lots of little things running around to keep us busy. I look forward to the next installment. Love you!

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