Don't Look At Your Father
Somehow she managed to get out of her seat belt. Opening the door she slipped to the ground. The exertion forced her to sit for a moment and rest, leaning her back against the car. Slowly, shock-numbed, she got to her feet and looked across the front seat at her husband. Though her head was cloudy from being smashed against the windshield a few moments earlier, still she realized there was no room for life between the seat and the steering wheel. Her heart broke at that moment, yet she could not dwell on her monumental loss. Her children, 22 year old Victor, and 20 year old Anne Marie were in the back seat. Dane Tate, one of her many "unofficially" adopted children, was also there, but Sandi (Lynn, her husband of 24 years, always called her Peaches) couldn't see him. Fear gripped her as she looked in the back, for there was no movement and no sound.
Sandi called to her children. Softly, for she had little strength, she whispered their names. I once read a quote that said, "We cough to clear our throats; we sigh to clear our hearts." I can almost hear Sandi's sigh when Anne Marie opened her eyes and looked at her.
Anxiously, Sandi called, "How badly are you hurt? How is Victor? Where is Dane?"
Love is a most powerful source of strength. People often go to great lengths, do heroic deeds, offer great sacrifices all in the name of love. It could be love of country, love of home, or love of family that gives one the power to accomplish. In Sandi's case it was surely the love for her children. For you see, what she was doing, standing there checking on the welfare of her children, was not an ordinary thing. The desire and the attempt would be ordinary, but Sandi did the extraordinary! With a badly broken leg - she should not have been able to stand - a broken arm, internal injuries and a soon to prove fatal head injury, she stood and talked with her children, checking on and comforting them.
"Don't look at your father," Sandi whispered.
The kids couldn't help themselves. Vic, who had come to for a few moments, and Anne Marie both looked. The slant of his head, the crushed, blood-stained face and his death closed eyes told them that their father was gone. Their own pain-induced shock kept them from crying, but they would never forget that moment.
How she did it God knows, but Sandi reached her head into the back seat and prayed with the kids. "Just a jumble of words," they said later, but surely God heard and understood. After the prayer she asked how badly they were hurt -
A fractured tailbone, cracked ribs and some internal injuries for Anne Marie (all diagnosed later, of course, but the pain was described when Sandi asked).
"Vic has a broken leg, and he says his hand hurts," Anne Marie, the most alert, reported.
As she checked Dane, who was had been thrown on the floor between the seats, it was obvious from the queer way his arm was twisted that it was broken. In fact it was so severely broken (crushed is a better word) that the Doctors at the first hospital he was taken to almost amputated it. They didn't, only because they were in too great hurry to get Dane to another hospital where he could have his transplanted kidney checked for any damage. By God's grace, the doctors at the second hospital rebuilt and saved his arm.
Knowing that her children would be all right, Sandi turned her attention back to Lynn.
"I need a blanket to cover my husband," she began telling the Samaritans trying to help. Somehow a blanket found its way into her arms. As she started around the car to her husband's side, she noticed a young man sitting on the ground across the road. He was in shock - shaking terribly. Her special mother's love pushed pain, and even thoughts of her husband out of her mind for the moment. She forced her badly broken body across the road and gently wrapped the blanket around the young man sitting there. He was the passenger and friend of the nineteen year old man who, in an adventurous race with some other friends in their caravan, was passing on a hill and, at the apex, in a flurry of twisted metal and broken glass, hit them head on . . . killing Sandi's husband. If the thought of what these young men had done crossed her mind she never showed it. Her love covered their dreadful carelessness.
After attending to the young man, She walked back across the street. North Flight helicopter and paramedics had arrived and they were trying to put Sandi on a stretcher. She allowed them to lay her down, but would not leave until they covered her husband with a blanket. One of the paramedics took a blanket, covered Lynn, and reported that to her. She looked over at her children and spoke her last words.
"I love you, kids."
Moments later she closed her eyes . . .
Paul records in 1 Corinthians 13: 13, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. " From the above we can see a woderful example how true this passage is, "The greatest of these IS love!" With love we can overcome any enemy, any difficulty, any setback, any failure. With love we can move forward, accomplish grand things, live great lives! With love the worst of our enemies, Satan, becomes a mountain cast into the sea. We know this is true because Love incarnate, our Savior Jesus Christ, came as the ultimate manifestation of God's love (1 John 4:9-10), and conquered our worst enemies - Sin, Death and the Devil! ( Isaiah 53:6; Hebrews 2:14-15; 1 Corinthians 15:51-57; 1 John 3:7-8).
While it is true that Satan is still powerful, and alone we cannot, must not face him, we can not only face him, but conquer him if we are in Christ Jesus. And in Christ Jesus every enemy is destroyed, because LOVE did the destroying.
Lynn and Sandi almost always went visiting on Lynn's day off. They would go from friend to friend, stopping for just a few minutes to say "hello." They wanted to cheer up as many people as possible, and they had a gift for doing that. After visiting for a few minutes, however, Lynn would put on his baseball hat, stand up and say, "Let's go, Peaches." Then he would walk out the door. Sandi never argued. She always got up, said they had to go, and with hugs and "good-byes" followed Lynn.
Shortly after the accident, from the other side of death's door, Lynn popped his head back in and said, "let's go, Peaches." From the bed in her darkened room in Munson Medical Center's ICU, Sandi rose, and as she always had, she followed Lynn home. It is faith, hope and love that has united them in eternity.
"And the greatest of these is love."
(This accident happened in 1989, but I was thinking about Lynn today and thought I would share this-JBT)
Sandi called to her children. Softly, for she had little strength, she whispered their names. I once read a quote that said, "We cough to clear our throats; we sigh to clear our hearts." I can almost hear Sandi's sigh when Anne Marie opened her eyes and looked at her.
Anxiously, Sandi called, "How badly are you hurt? How is Victor? Where is Dane?"
Love is a most powerful source of strength. People often go to great lengths, do heroic deeds, offer great sacrifices all in the name of love. It could be love of country, love of home, or love of family that gives one the power to accomplish. In Sandi's case it was surely the love for her children. For you see, what she was doing, standing there checking on the welfare of her children, was not an ordinary thing. The desire and the attempt would be ordinary, but Sandi did the extraordinary! With a badly broken leg - she should not have been able to stand - a broken arm, internal injuries and a soon to prove fatal head injury, she stood and talked with her children, checking on and comforting them.
"Don't look at your father," Sandi whispered.
The kids couldn't help themselves. Vic, who had come to for a few moments, and Anne Marie both looked. The slant of his head, the crushed, blood-stained face and his death closed eyes told them that their father was gone. Their own pain-induced shock kept them from crying, but they would never forget that moment.
How she did it God knows, but Sandi reached her head into the back seat and prayed with the kids. "Just a jumble of words," they said later, but surely God heard and understood. After the prayer she asked how badly they were hurt -
A fractured tailbone, cracked ribs and some internal injuries for Anne Marie (all diagnosed later, of course, but the pain was described when Sandi asked).
"Vic has a broken leg, and he says his hand hurts," Anne Marie, the most alert, reported.
As she checked Dane, who was had been thrown on the floor between the seats, it was obvious from the queer way his arm was twisted that it was broken. In fact it was so severely broken (crushed is a better word) that the Doctors at the first hospital he was taken to almost amputated it. They didn't, only because they were in too great hurry to get Dane to another hospital where he could have his transplanted kidney checked for any damage. By God's grace, the doctors at the second hospital rebuilt and saved his arm.
Knowing that her children would be all right, Sandi turned her attention back to Lynn.
"I need a blanket to cover my husband," she began telling the Samaritans trying to help. Somehow a blanket found its way into her arms. As she started around the car to her husband's side, she noticed a young man sitting on the ground across the road. He was in shock - shaking terribly. Her special mother's love pushed pain, and even thoughts of her husband out of her mind for the moment. She forced her badly broken body across the road and gently wrapped the blanket around the young man sitting there. He was the passenger and friend of the nineteen year old man who, in an adventurous race with some other friends in their caravan, was passing on a hill and, at the apex, in a flurry of twisted metal and broken glass, hit them head on . . . killing Sandi's husband. If the thought of what these young men had done crossed her mind she never showed it. Her love covered their dreadful carelessness.
After attending to the young man, She walked back across the street. North Flight helicopter and paramedics had arrived and they were trying to put Sandi on a stretcher. She allowed them to lay her down, but would not leave until they covered her husband with a blanket. One of the paramedics took a blanket, covered Lynn, and reported that to her. She looked over at her children and spoke her last words.
"I love you, kids."
Moments later she closed her eyes . . .
Paul records in 1 Corinthians 13: 13, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. " From the above we can see a woderful example how true this passage is, "The greatest of these IS love!" With love we can overcome any enemy, any difficulty, any setback, any failure. With love we can move forward, accomplish grand things, live great lives! With love the worst of our enemies, Satan, becomes a mountain cast into the sea. We know this is true because Love incarnate, our Savior Jesus Christ, came as the ultimate manifestation of God's love (1 John 4:9-10), and conquered our worst enemies - Sin, Death and the Devil! ( Isaiah 53:6; Hebrews 2:14-15; 1 Corinthians 15:51-57; 1 John 3:7-8).
While it is true that Satan is still powerful, and alone we cannot, must not face him, we can not only face him, but conquer him if we are in Christ Jesus. And in Christ Jesus every enemy is destroyed, because LOVE did the destroying.
Lynn and Sandi almost always went visiting on Lynn's day off. They would go from friend to friend, stopping for just a few minutes to say "hello." They wanted to cheer up as many people as possible, and they had a gift for doing that. After visiting for a few minutes, however, Lynn would put on his baseball hat, stand up and say, "Let's go, Peaches." Then he would walk out the door. Sandi never argued. She always got up, said they had to go, and with hugs and "good-byes" followed Lynn.
Shortly after the accident, from the other side of death's door, Lynn popped his head back in and said, "let's go, Peaches." From the bed in her darkened room in Munson Medical Center's ICU, Sandi rose, and as she always had, she followed Lynn home. It is faith, hope and love that has united them in eternity.
"And the greatest of these is love."
(This accident happened in 1989, but I was thinking about Lynn today and thought I would share this-JBT)
posted by Josiah Tilton at 11:12 AM
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