It's been a year!

December 13, 2018 is a date I will never forget.  

Our eldest son had surprised us the day before by coming home from college for Christmas break a day early.  Our committments were wrapped up for the year, and now our focus had turned towards getting Christmas gifts ready to be wrapped, cards in the mail, and packages ready to go out.  

 I was sitting at my desk in the living room, humming as I browsed Amazon for some final shopping. Hubs and I had been texting back and forth during his passing periods at school about last minute gifts for the kids.  Christmas decorations had just gone up in our cheerful color scheme.  I'd been inspired to do a couple of new artistic pieces around the home, which with our new artificial tree and garland in snowy white looked absolutely stunning.  I was happily anticipating many fun days ahead while our boy was home, as well as the usual spate of Holiday entertaining.

Then, into my well ordered, perfectly decorated world, my new iPhone vibrated on my desk, and I glanced down to see hubs work number scrolling across the screen.

Odd.  Why would they be calling me?

I picked up, and was surprised to hear a woman's voice.  The secretary to Jeff's boss at his school.  Calling to inform me that Jeff had collapsed at work, and that EMT's were with him now.  There was slurring of speech, and talk of airlifting him to a trauma center.

Slurring of speech?  That sounded like a stroke.  But how?  Only last week, Jeff had been at the gym lifting his personal best since college.  350 lb deadlift for an almost 50 year old guy was pretty good.  He'd been eating clean.  We'd been trying to take better care of ourselves after my own health crisis from the previous summer. 

Our youngest, who is homeschooled, was working on math at the kitchen table, and our oldest was also doing some last minute shopping online.  Everything came to a standstill when they heard my end of the conversation.  

I remember feeling shaky.  And strangely cotton-mouthed, with a coil of dread forming in my stomach as I ended my call.

"We need to go.  Now."

Seeing my shakiness and the ashen look on my face, our older son volunteered, "Mom, I'll drive."

Even in that moment, I knew that the Lord had brought him home a day early for that very reason.  I couldn't have driven that car if I'd tried.

We grabbed our devices and cords, hopped in the car, and got to the trauma hospital as fast as we possibly could...