Please forgive me because this post isn’t about gardening…I just wanted to share it with you, because it’s about someone very precious to me – my son. Mother’s Day has been a holiday for which I have very sad, even bitter memories. It’s a day that I normally try to ignore. This year has changed my attitude because I got the best, early Mother’s Day gift of my life.

Mother’s Nightmare

Last Wednesday evening, I had been exceptionally tired and had fallen asleep on the sofa. When my cell phone rang, it took me a few seconds to wake up enough to go answer it. It was the phone call which is every Mother’s nightmare. My daughter calling to tell me my son had been in a serious car accident.

She hurried to reassure me that he wasn’t injured, but that I needed to call him. The sound of his voice reassured me that he was unhurt, just rattled. It had been raining all day and all evening and he had been on his way home from his evening job when a car ran a red light at a busy intersection. He had a split second to hit the brakes and brace himself before he hit the passenger side of the other vehicle.

The other driver was unhurt but taken to jail, he had a blood alcohol level of 0.23 (Indiana has a 0.08 limit). A kind police officer gave my son a ride home, but he was wet, cold, shivering, shaken and upset.

Later

The next day, I took time off from work to pick him up. We first went to the salvage yard where both vehicles had been towed, since they were not drivable. When we saw those two wrecked cars, a Mother’s nightmare, we both realized how very, very lucky he had been.

If he had applied the brakes just a few seconds later…if he had not been wearing his seat belt…if he didn’t drive so cautiously…if the airbag hadn’t deployed…if his car had hit the other car with the front driver’s side instead of the front passenger side…IF, IF, IF…he might have been killed.

So, there is no need to give me a card, or flowers, or candy for Mother’s Day. I had my son given to me twice – once when he was born and last Wednesday when he lived.