We had quite a weekend! As you already know from the previous post, we had not 1 but 2 kids with strep on Friday night. By the time Sunday came around, everyone was ready to go outside and play after being in quarantine all weekend. It was a beautiful cool fall day too, so even more reason to go outside.
The kids were all out riding bikes, and I too was out helping Benny learn to ride without training wheels! (I know this is a big step!) As I am sure every parent has been through, Benny fell off his bike every time he noticed that I was no longer holding him up. While I was helping Benny get back up on his bike, every parents worse nightmare happened to me.
Our next door neighbors were having a get-together, and their guest’s vehicles lined the street on our side, stretching past both sides of our driveway. Joey and Megan were riding their bikes with the neighbor’s kids across from us, who were around Joey’s age.
Joey was in our driveway, and saw his older sister riding on the other side of the street with the other kids, and decided to cross the street to join them. He told me later he looked both ways before he crossed, but couldn’t see anything because of the large SUV parked in the street right next to the driveway. At the same time Joey decided to cross, a large pickup was making its way toward our house.
The driver told us that he saw a group of kids playing on the left side of the street, but didn’t see Joey behind the parked vehicle as he rode out, right in front of the moving truck. The driver hit the front tire of Joey’s bike, but thankfully, because he had seen the kids playing on the left side, the driver decided to slow down as he passed! Joey didn’t have a scratch on him.
There wasn’t a single tear from Joey, and he was completely fine. The man apologized several times and even offered to buy him a new bike, which we declined. The man was obviously very shaken and even came back about an hour later to double check that our little man was okay.
This even has shaken me, I woke up several times last night just to check on Joey. I even let him come into our bed when he woke up in the middle of the night, just so I could snuggle with him. I am so grateful that all the damage was to the bike and not to Joey. We know that God was with him yesterday, watching over him and keeping him safe. Joey is here with us today because of Him.
This is absolutely the scariest thing that has ever happened in my life, and has taught me not to take a moment for granted with my family, and I encourage you to do the same. Something can happen in the blink of an eye to change your life forever. I thank God that this wasn’t one of those times for me.
