{"id":329,"date":"2015-10-16T14:50:48","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T14:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/?p=329"},"modified":"2015-10-16T14:51:42","modified_gmt":"2015-10-16T14:51:42","slug":"impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/?p=329","title":{"rendered":"Impact"},"content":{"rendered":"

I braced myself for impact, knowing I couldn’t stop.\u00a0 Time seemed to stand still for a moment as I saw the young girl look at me and realize that something bad was about to happen.\u00a0\u00a0As\u00a0my van\u00a0started to\u00a0crash into\u00a0her car, I remember thinking, ‘this cannot be happening’.\u00a0\u00a0When the van came to a stop, my first thought went to the other driver.\u00a0 Was she okay?\u00a0 How badly was she hurt?<\/p>\n

I was driving to get one of my sons from school when\u00a0the young girl pulled in front of me.\u00a0\u00a0She was pulling out of a parking lot,\u00a0trying to make a left hand turn.\u00a0 She didn’t see me.\u00a0 I found out later that some other drivers in the other lane had indicated to her that she could go, that the road was clear.\u00a0 It wasn’t.\u00a0 She had trusted.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, we were both okay.\u00a0 We walked away with bumps, bruises, and minor burns from the air bags, but we walked.\u00a0 And God provided two gracious men who saw the accident, checked on us, called 911, and stayed until emergency crews arrived.<\/p>\n

I held it together long enough to call my other son to tell him about the accident and have him get his brother at school.\u00a0 And I called my husband to let him know what had happened.<\/p>\n

I was pretty proud of myself for not falling apart.\u00a0 I was able to speak calmly to the fire men and police officers who arrived at the scene.\u00a0 I gave them the information they needed and recounted the events all without crying.\u00a0 But then EMS arrived.\u00a0 The kind lady\"WP_20151015_002\"<\/a> came over to me to see if I needed any medical attention.\u00a0 I told her no.\u00a0 She said that was fine, but I needed to go with her to fill out some paperwork.\u00a0 I answered her questions, and she once again, asked if I was okay.\u00a0 That’s when I could feel the emotions rise.\u00a0 I told her, “I feel a big cry coming on.”\u00a0 She smiled and told me that was very normal after a traumatic event.<\/p>\n

A traumatic event<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was traumatic.\u00a0 I drive a big van and the girl was in a small compact car.\u00a0 \u00a0I know it could have been so much worse.\u00a0 It was unexpected and jarring.\u00a0 It was painful.\u00a0 It was unnerving.\u00a0 And although she was at fault, I<\/em> was the one who hit her, <\/em>a young girl who was now terribly shaken up.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0traumatic event.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I knew that I needed to hold it together for a little while, though.\u00a0 I knew there would be questions to be answered and tasks to be done.\u00a0 And my kids to tell.\u00a0 I knew that they would be worried about me and concerned about what would need to be done, particularly with my husband being out of town.\u00a0 So I held it together.\u00a0 We got the van towed, a car rented, dinner eaten, and\u00a0homework done.\u00a0 But I could feel that big cry looming.<\/p>\n

As I lay in bed that night, I reflected on the day.\u00a0 It had started out so normal, but then…<\/p>\n

A traumatic event.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

It took me by surprise.\u00a0 It\u00a0caused me\u00a0to evaluate.\u00a0 It reminded me of what’s truly important.\u00a0 It gave me perspective.\u00a0 It made me thankful.\u00a0 It made me grateful for other people.\u00a0 It made me cry…a big, snot dripping, ugly cry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I braced myself for impact, knowing I couldn’t stop.\u00a0 Time seemed to stand still for a moment as I saw the young girl look at me and realize that something bad was about to happen.\u00a0\u00a0As\u00a0my van\u00a0started to\u00a0crash into\u00a0her car, I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/WP_20151015_002.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":334,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions\/334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}