After my accident, life was a lot tougher in our household. One of the things for which I am most grateful is that my wife is someone who lives close to the spirit. A year or two before my accident, she came to me and told me that she felt very strongly that it was time we got serious with our food storage. We discussed it some more. We had tried to get our food storage in order many times but something always came up that took its place in the hierarchy of our priorities.
This time was different for some reason and, after giving my wife the green light, she set to the task of storing up against hard times like a squirrel on amphetamines. I don't think anyone who hasn't gone through two years of being unable to go to work can appreciate the joy and satisfaction that comes from sitting down to a really good meal that is the product of your own industry and the prudence of your wife.
To be sure, we were beholding to the charity of others but the need for that charity was mitigated substantially by my wife's insight and patience and providence. She built up our food storage by adding thirty dollars a week to our food budget. She shopped for bargains like a miner panning for gold and, within a year and a half, she had stored up enough to see us through almost two years of my recuperating. All we needed to shop for during those two years were perishables like milk and eggs.
She didn't store only food. We had soap, razors, toilet paper...all the things she could think of and anything that went on sale became a food storage item. These were set aside in our closets and under our beds and everyone in our family knew that breaking open a package of any item designated as a food storage item would bring swift and terrible retribution upon our heads...(you husbands, think of what happens when you cut paper with "the good scissors" and you'll get an idea of what I'm talking about.)
I found out that wives employ a version of fuzzy math and that a case of toilet paper that was purchased on sale at half off is ten times more valuable than a case of toilet paper purchased at the regular price.
But, even though we were prepared with our food storage, the two years recuperating were times of deprivation for our family. We wanted for none of the necessities but we had no luxuries either. We looked forward with great anticipation to our return to normal life.
We were involved in a law suit with the construction company and we were certain that our times of want would end as soon as the settlement conference came up. We had discovered things that we felt certain no insurance company would want to go before a jury and we were confident that, at the settlement conference, they would pony up and we could move on.
The conference took place on a Saturday and we spent all day going back and forth. Despite the fact that the insurance company was in agreement with many points of our case, they felt certain that a jury would not see past the fact that I had hit their truck. They also cited the fact that Harris County juries are notoriously stingy and so, after offering us less money than what would even cover my medical bills, they left the bargaining table.
My wife and I were devastated. We drove home in silence. It was almost midnight and my wife asked me to stop off at the grocery store so that she could get a gallon of milk before The Sabbath.
The Sabbath... I thought to myself bitterly...What use is it to obey the law of The Sabbath if we receive no blessings for it?
But I pulled into the store anyway and, because I was still having trouble walking more than fifty feet at a time, I sat on a bench at the front of the store while my wife went to the dairy section at the back.
As my wife disappeared in the back, another woman came to the checkout stand. I could tell that she had once been a very beautiful woman but that she had obviously been through many surgeries. I spotted a fellow accident survivor.
As she checked out, I looked at the many scars on her. She had kind of a stony expression on her face and she struggled to speak with the cashier through the corner of her mouth. Most horrible of all were her legs, the scars looked as if they had been through a meat grinder. She finished her purchase and struggled with her groceries as far as my bench and then she stopped beside me to take a rest.
I apologized for not helping her and showed her my own scars explaining that I was unable to hold much more than a pound of weight at that time.
Accident victims love to compare stories and, up until that point, I had won every encounter with a fellow accident survivor. She asked me what happened and, after I told her, I could see the remnant of a twinkle in her eye and she tried to smile as she said, "I can beat that"
She told me that she had been working at a photo kiosk in a parking lot when a drunk driver in an eighteen wheeler made a u-turn though the parking lot, crashed through the kiosk and pinned her against a tree, crushing her face and nearly severing both of her legs below the knee. When the truck backed away, she was still pinned to the tree by a pipe that had come through the truck and had impaled her to the tree's trunk.
If you think I've told you the worst...you're wrong.
While she was still in the hospital, the insurance company settled with her for several million dollars. The day that the check cleared in her bank account, her husband called to inform her that he could no longer stand to look at her. Then he absconded with all the settlement money and all the money they had saved prior to her accident, leaving her nothing.
I had to remind myself to breathe for several minutes after hearing the woman's tale. Several thoughts raced through me....no hole in hell deep enough.....the feminists are right, we're pigs finally I asked her, "how do you manage to even get out of bed in the morning?"
"Oh", she said, "It was rough for a while and then I realized that he only took money. I still have my kids and the rest of my family"
She struggled to her feet and grabbed her bag. Then she leaned down and patted my arm, "We don't always know what tomorrow holds...but we know who holds tomorrow"
That night I spent awake wondering if God hadn't sent an angel to me to remind me just what is and isn't important.
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