Count Your Blessings

Family Life / By

 

 

This plaque in my bathroom reminds me daily to “Count My Blessings”

For a few weeks now a blog post has been composting inside my head. It started when our 18 year old son Mitchell came home after being out really late, to tell us that there had been a little mishap with our new car. I kind of was waiting for this “first” incident. My husband D had been hovering over the car like it was a new baby and whenever one of  our driving kids asked to use it, he would grill them with questions as to where they were going, how long would they be out, was there adequate parking…etc.

It was the inquisition questions I usually pose, to make sure our children are going to be safe.  But in this case, it was to ensure the “car” would be safe. Oh, and the last thing D would say to our kids as they headed out, was, “drive safely.” They would nod and say, “of course,” and be off.

Now normally I’m the one to give this line, “be safe.” After all it was my dad who was killed in an automobile accident when I was a child and you know it’s like a well worn rut in my life, things happen in a blink of an eye and there is no going back to life as you once knew it. It’s fear. Blatant fear.

This time though it was D who was fearful and of course it was for his children, but you know this time it was really about the new little car sitting in our garage. He has been more protective of this car than any of the others. True, the others were getting older when our kids started to drive them. but it’s kind of funny because it’s not like this was an expensive car. It’s a car that we’ve needed to purchase for awhile now but we were hoping to buy a hybrid or an electric car. We were really wanted to make a green choice this next time.

We held on to his Dodge Durango (a gas guzzler to be sure) and my old Ford Windstar van for WELL over 10 years; longer than we have ever held onto any cars before, because,

1. The Durango was a 4 wheel drive, it was our ski car to get us up to the hill safely and it seated 7…plus you know we get a lot of snow where we live right?.

2.  Cars are expensive and we wanted to buy the greenest car we could afford for our next purchase

3. We wanted to make sure the kids that were driving, had more experience on our old cars before     we bought new ones.

So finally, last year we bought a new Honda Odessey Van (yes, not the greenest car but sadly there aren’t any large family green vehicles out there…makes sense I guess) to replace my Ford but since it isn’t insured for the kids to drive, there hasn’t been any panic over its use.

This summer we finally bought a little economical Honda Fit. It’s the sport edition so it has fancy little wheels and spoiler. D loves how peppy it is and although he is over 6 feet tall he says  it’s very spacious. He also loves the gas savings.

Well that is the back story on our car situation for you but what I wanted to talk about was this little accident Mitchell experienced. He apparently was leaving his friend’s place very late, well actually early in the morning, and ended up backing into his friend’s car. It thankfully, wasn’t damaged at all since it was like 20 years old and made of stronger stuff than our Honda but our little car was really hurt.

Mitchell said he couldn’t sleep when he came home and instead dozed off and on until he heard his Dad getting up for work. He said he had to tell him what had happened before he went out and saw it for himself. Now I must give him credit for coming clean. That must have been really hard because he knew how much his Dad loved this new little car.

I wasn’t happy with how angry D was over this situation. For a day he was outraged and told Mitchell that he was paying for it. Which I agree is the right thing to teach children to be more careful but I think he walked around with his jaw set tightly a bit longer than was necessary.

Okay, so  this is our pretty little car….not even 6 weeks old.

 

Our new little economical Fit sporty car.

and here is the damage

I’m not going to blow it up….it isn’t a pretty sight.
Now I have to give you a bit more back story on how things have been going around here. Our son Mitchell graduated this past June. Out of our three kids driving he probably is the best.
Mitchell trying on his gown a day before Grad
All summer it’s been me who has been having ‘”issues” with Mitchell. He took Psych 12 and says that to make it easier for me to let him go off to University in September, I have been angry with him for one thing or another and it will be less traumatic say good bye if I’m mad at him. Well, it may be that, but I think it has more to do with the fact that I felt if he had time to go out with friends, into the wee hours of the morning, then  he had time to help out “more” around the house.Typical power struggle as kids grow up…they want total autonomy and we still want them to be part of the family.
Now I have to tell you that Mitchell is an AWESOME young man. This kid has been hard wired to get along socially with everyone since he was tiny. He just gets it and is really well balanced. He is an excellent student, has received scholarships to attend University, is multi-talented,  plays cello, guitar, loves all sorts of sports, is a soccer ref and is well liked at the neighbourhood grocery store where he has worked for over a year now.
I think because he is so amazing, may be part of the reason I push him so hard. I want him to rise to be his best self. So when I heard about the accident on our little car, you would think that I too would be angry, but I wasn’t. My first reaction was relief that it was just the car that was damaged. Then I was really proud how he handled things with his father.  I also saw remorse for the accident and I know he was feeling so badly over the whole situation. It just broke my heart. Also, I knew how hard he was working to help with University expenses and now he would have to pay hundreds to repair the car.
To give you a glimpse into the whole picture, at the beginning of summer, one of my husband’s co-worker’s son was killed in an accident. He was only 15. The family had a summer cabin and their son went out early one evening to go tubing with neighbours. When he fell off his tube, the boat went back to pick him up but tragically drove over him instead. He was air lifted to a nearby hospital with life threatening injuries but he lived for less than a week, until finally his parents made the difficult decision to end life support.
We were all reeling over the accident. Partly, because we knew his parents but mainly because it had been such a senseless accident. Also, when you live in a small town there are always so many connections. Mitchell knew the person who drove the boat. It was his boss’s wife. Our whole community was affected by this young person’s death and sadly it wasn’t a singular affair. Several children have been killed in our community this past year due to accidents and then Alyssa, our oldest, also lost a dear friend who had CF and passed away several months after under going a lung transplant.
So after two days of D being angry over the car incident and watching Mitchell move around the house with a glum face, I finally called D at the office and said things had to change. I asked him to come home and drive Mitchell to his afternoon shift at work. D said that it was so strange that I had just called as he had just been talking to his co worker on the phone. They had been discussing how he was processing grief and he was saying he had to try to get back to a normal routine even though things would never be normal again. D suddenly had a new perspective into our little accident.
We hadn’t lost a child. He was still there to hug and for us to tell him how proud we were of him and how much we loved him. He was even there for us to be mad at and later in the summer we would have the opportunity to send him off to University. Wow!
The car is just a ‘thing” which can be repaired. It will be replaced several times over Mitchell’s lifetime, God willing. It was a good lesson for our son to realize how quickly an accident happens. Maybe this lesson will have prevented a bigger one, more serious from occurring. It was a good lesson for us as well to count our blessings.
So D came home that afternoon and drove Mitchell to work. He told him how he really felt. That our son was the most important person in the world to us and accidents are learning opportunities…for everyone.
Years ago, I read a bible quote that has always stuck with me and I have incorporated it into my daily life mantras. Maybe you don’t have issues with “stuff” but I think this is one of life’s lessons for us to be heightened to as we go about our lives acquiring things. We work so hard on earth and for what? For me this bible quote puts this all into perspective.

Matthew 6:19-21   King James Version

19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

King James Version (KJV)

So tomorrow before I get out of bed,  I’m going to Count My Blessings. Being grateful is truly  the core of being happy and living our best life.

What are the blessings you are counting?

 Until I see you again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.

Blessings from Hope