Photo Credit: Saveup.com
As most of you know, Tom has been “practicing retirement” for over a year now. He’s not ready to retire, but he hasn’t found what God has for him yet. So in the mean time, we’re together a lot. It’s wonderful in many ways, but it’s also been a challenge. Gone are the days when he would be away, and I had time to actually think about and plan a surprise for him. I hadn’t even thought about it until recently.
I mentioned to Tom, “You know I can’t remember the last time I surprised you or planned a romantic date without you knowing.”
“I know. I’ve missed it.”
O.U.C.H.
It’s terrible when you realize you’ve dropped the ball in an area you used to practice on a regular basis.
It’s even worse when you haven’t even noticed! So that led me last week to start thinking of how I could surprise Tom. We already had Monday night planned to go see an early release of the movie Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. We won these tickets as a perk from Klout–an on-line website that measures your supposed influence. I’m still not sure how it all works, but we were thrilled to be asked to attend this movie for FREE.
Since the movie was titled Gravity, I had been pondering how to build a date around the theme of gravity. I hadn’t gotten very far when I realized gravity isn’t so romantic.
You see, Tom and I were working in the front yard sprucing it up for the fall and the holiday season. He noticed some dead tree limbs and decided to go to work on them. He set up our ladder and starting working on getting one down when it happened! He thought a limb was going to fall on him, so he attempted to get off the ladder quick! Unfortunately, he missed a rung and fell backwards 5 feet landing flat on his back! I watched the whole thing and was horrified! I didn’t know what to do first. When I got to him he obviously had the wind knock out of him. He didn’t move at first, and I wasn’t sure whether to help him up or call 911. It was the worst five minutes waiting for him to help me know what to do!
But I didn’t panic. Tom has always told me the best thing to do in an emergency is to stay calm and think. (His Boy Scout training in action!) Tom moved both legs, so I knew he hadn’t done any serious damage to his spine. He was able to get up with help and walk inside using some crutches we happened the have in our garage.
Long story short–we saw the doctor immediately where an x-ray confirmed there were no broken bones–praise God! But what he did have was a crushing injury requiring heavy doses of pain killers, muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatory drugs. All our plans for a date night were canceled, as my new role was helping him recover.
It wasn’t until we were inside and he was comfortable (a relative term) that we realized how kind God had been to us.
Tom missed hitting his head on the pavement by 5 inches! He could have not landed flat on his back, but on his neck or on his tailbone causing serious, if not life-threatening, injuries. I shudder to think of it.
The next day our 6th grandchild, Vito Price, was born. Tom could have been killed and missed seeing this precious miracle. But.he.wasn’t! God in His mercy softened his fall and simply slowed down our life and plans for a few weeks.
I’ve decided that a gravity-themed date night isn’t such a good idea. In fact, it’s a downer!
Now it’s my turn to love Tom back and care for him the way he cared for me two weeks ago after my fall. What a month we’ve had. It lends a whole new meaning to ‘falling in love!” I’ll keep the love, but no thanks on the falling part. We’ve had enough for a while.
By the way, the tree limb is still hanging in our tree mocking Tom’s attempt to get it down. As far as we’re concerned it can stay there!
How has your spouse helped you when you’ve had the wind knocked out of you?
The Romantic Vineyard 