Salad, the ER, and Chimney Mania

I had just emerged from the shower last night and was looking forward to dinner. I'd made a salad from my garden's first lettuce harvest of the season - along with some veggie favorites - and was about to pour on the dressing when the phone rang.


"Hey Dad, how are you?" I asked.

"Not too good," my Dad said. "Your brother is hurt and we're at the emergency room."

Huh?

"Jere's hurt. He's being moved to Longview," Dad continued. "I need directions to the hospital."

The salad hit the counter, I dashed toward the bedroom for a sweatshirt and pair of jeans, and agreed to meet my Dad and rush them to the hospital.

"Pray, sweetie," he kept saying. "Pray real hard."

I did.

We met up halfway, where I learned that my high school senior brother had been hit in the face with a wild pitch during a hotly-contested baseball game. He was rushed to the local ER, where my mother, brother Sam, and my sister met him. My youngest brother, Sam, took one look at Jere's mangled face and passed out cold in the hallway of the ER. My poor Dad walked into the hospital to find two of his sons being worked on by medical personnel. I held his hand as he cried.

We were in the ER until after 2 o'clock this morning. Sam was fine, but Jere has a ways to go. He was hit in the right eye (while batting) with an 80 mph (or so) baseball, and it fractured his facial bones, broke blood vessels, and left eye muscles damaged or rearranged. We found out today he's had some internal bleeding. He looks terrible, but thank God he's going to pull through just fine. Thank God.

When I got home around 3 a.m., I was too exhausted to sleep. I slumped down against a wall in the kitchen and shook with sobs. It had been a close call. Too close....

As I quieted down, I realized: the wall behind me is shaking with me. I mean, I could feel it moving. What in the world...? I found a pry bar and popped one of the tongue-and-groove boards off. I saw... brick. I pulled another board away.


Laaaadies and gentlemen! May I introduce ... the in-perfect-condition kitchen chim-neeey!

(This Freeman House is one heckuva house, I tell you.) I was so confused and excited and manic (at that point) that I started crying again just thinking of the implications: an indoor pizza oven... a kitchen fireplace.... a hot-coals-holder for making homemade cobblers in dutch ovens...

I was suddenly hungry. I guess I never got around to that first lettuce harvest salad.

Oh well. There are so many more important things. So many more important things. Salads and chimneys are one thing, family is another.

And I'm so blessed to have a good one of each.

Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud:

and He shall hear my voice.

-Psalm 55:17