My mom

Well, today marks the beginning of a new journey for us. A family of eight, whose mother was not feeling well, asked if some of the kids could stay at our house for a while. My sister invited her friend, who is the oldest child in the family and only a few months younger than my nine-year old sister. We had three of the fours girls over. While they were playing outside and I was bent on beating spider solitaire, something happened. Something happened that could possibly change life as we know it… After a while the girls came in and I heard one of them say something like, “I hope her ankle is ok.” I counted them. All the girls were there. What did they mean? But I was obsessed with winning solitaire and I knew that there HAD to be a five in there somewhere!

{I am selfish. It’s not something I’m proud of. I hate it. But at certain times…well, really, all the time, I can only be focused on ME. What I want, what I think, listen to me, pay attention to me.}

So then a bit later (I was too “busy” that I didn’t check the time; I was in my bubble) my dad asks through the sliding-glass window to my mom, who I had failed to notice had NOT come in (because I am selfish) and says something like, “Are you ok?”

And still nothing hits me that something might be wrong. {Man, am I self-absorbed or what?} And so a bit later one of the girls comes in and says, “Your mom needs you outside”, and I think, “Oh…snap.”

So I get out there and she is leaning on my dad, who is holding her up, and she is not putting any weight on her right foot. Suddenly a lot of things were running through my head. How did this happen? What was hurt? What was she going to do? Is she going to the hospital? Will we be able to go to night church {where all my friends were and I wanted to be}?

{May I point out the extreme amount of selfishness in the latter? And the one question that I SHOULD have thought was a mere ripple in the waterfall of questions: How can I help?}

But my dad told me to support her other side and we helped her to get to the threshold of the back door to the house. She said her head was spinning, her ears were ringing, and she felt like she was going to collapse. After a while we decided to go to some emergency hospital-outlet thingy. We got to the car and with all the other children in the car, we drove there. Eventually they took her in and after that the other kids were picked up by their father. Then we had to wait {and I am so bad at waiting; I get mad at my computer for taking 3 minutes instead of 1 to start up} and then we went into her room. She wasn’t there. She was taking x-rays.

{And during this whole time the only selfish thought running through my head was, “Will we make it to church? Will we make it to prayer meeting?” Sure, I was concerned about her, but that was my focus. That was so wrong on so many degrees. I can’t even begin to describe how disappointed I am at how selfish I am. UH! I hate myself! AH! It’s terrible. I hate my flesh. I hate the skin I’m in.}

Then she got the results back and I hastily got off the phone. During this whole time I was texting people, telling them the news, wrongly wanting their sympathy, asking them to pray. My mother had fallen in the backyard. She wasn’t doing anything. She was walking, and she just fell. When she fell, her foot slipped and she put all her weight on the other ankle, which twisted. And guess what. She broke both bones in her ankle!
I know. It’s terrible. Just by the way she wasn’t crying much and how she didn’t say how much it really must have been hurting, I thought she had only sprained it. But the bones were broken. No chance of going to prayer meeting (and that’s less than what I deserved for being so selfish). In the thirty minutes or so in which she got a splint put on because her foot was too swollen to have a cast yet, we (Dad, my sis, and I) went to Whataburger. And I say proudly that, being the good dieter that I am, I had a chicken salad without cheese (on accident; they forgot it) and only a few fries. We went back and she had a splint and we thought she was ready to go. The nurse started wheeling her out of the room and into the hallway when they said that they wanted a blood pressure test thing or whatever.

My mother hates those. The machines always give her bruises, and they always have to do it more than once because the automatic ones don’t read her well or whatever. So they did have to take it twice, and she said twice that it hurt, and I could see how much pain it was causing her. They finally switched to a different one and it read. . Only 2 ½ hours! Not bad for emergency care or whatever. In fact, that’s practically the speed of light! Then we left, stopped by the drive-thru at Whataburger to get her a plain and dry burger, just the way she likes it, and then we went home. We helped her into the house and then my dad got a wheelchair from somewhere

So that’s it, then. Now you know how selfish I am, how hurt my mom is, and how caring my dad is. I hate myself for being so selfish and self-pitying. My mom always had a bad knee that always hurt her, and she has a hard time getting around. Guess which ankle she broke. The good one! That creates so many problems, you have no idea. But anyway, I plan to make her breakfast-in-bed tomorrow. Shhh! Don’t tell her! I’m sorry for being selfish. God bless you for reading and caring, and please keep her in your prayers.