Life is a GIFT, truly it IS. Especially when everything in a moment gets turned upside down. ‘Everything’ is a broad contextualization for recent goings-on with Virginia, your more-than-slightly battered blogger. Maybe I better explain…

Last Friday morning while driving home from a doctor’s appointment through a busy Williamsburg intersection (Route 199 & Jamestown Road), the previous planned festive activities for the rest of the day changed (rather suddenly) when an elderly couple ran a red light.

Not just a wee-bit-over-run, unfortunately.  In retrospect, instead of hitting the brakes, the driver slammed on the GAS PEDAL forwarding their car at a high speed into the intersection as my car happened to be passing through.

SMASH. SMASH. BAMMM-BOOZLE.  My car was smashed, then bammm-boozled into the oncoming traffic lane, which fortunately providentially at that moment was the red-light turn lane for Jamestown Road (headed toward The College of William & Mary.)

whew!  Carted away in a stretcher to the ER: swollen ankle, knee, hip, back, neck and checks for internal injuries. 9 (NINE) hours later of tests, x-rays, and scans – there was no broken neck (thank you JESUS!) just a cervical sprain (did I mention the Friday doc appointment was treating misbehaving discs in neck?) But when the nurse said it would hurt worse the next day (like you gotta be kidding lady, everything hurt pretty bad!!) SHE WASN’T KIDDING.

The next morning I woke up actually HYPERVENTILATING from The Pain.

No kidding. Hurt so bad my clamoring woke up my brother who ran to get bread to take with the heavy duty pain meds (after reading the bottle, you can actually take TWO of these? throw some cheese on that toast!) egads.

ICE. ELEVATION. MEDS. BED. ICE. MORE MEDS. BED.

It hurt so bad I didn’t even want TO READ. (Virginia’s ultimate Pain-O-Meter, as even with kidney stones, the Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit or other comforting books usually serve as pain distractors.)

ok, ok, so I also prayed. ALOT. But, not terribly deep stuff, more like:

PLEASE GOD HELP. HELP. HELP. HELP. Interspersed with Thank Yous (like, for life – it IS a Gift, no kidding!) and other stuff.

I truly am so very thankful for Good Samaritans – a lovely man jumped out to help immediately after the crash (a paramedic visiting from Minnesota) … a young lady called 911. The local paramedics, so very helpful, my family galvanized into action. My sister Shere (even with a house full of company and packed weekend of frenzied plans) who spent those 9 hours with me in the ER then got me home and showered (after using a bed pan to wee? can you believe?) My brother Dwight’s colleagues let him zoom immediately home from work to cover the Savvy Saints (thank God for the holiday weekend he had off to take care of his battered sis.)

Family praying, friends praying (& bringing food! & flowers! & fellowship!)

… ooooh, so much to be grateful for!

Life is a Gift. Yep. It is.

And yes, almost a week later, I still hurt. It may take awhile for the ICE-MEDS-BED- treatment to work (24 steroids notwithstanding. Methinks the petering down, is, uh, a reality pain check from how much can I do without lifting anything heavy? like a milk carton? to like, how can I get out of bed?)  : )

But, ONE MORE TIME. Life really is a GIFT.  An ordinary day, an ordinary way (driven almost every day) and suddenly everything can be turned upside down.

But my heart is right-side-UP with gratitude to God, the Ultimate Giver of Roses in the Rubble of our lives, Roses of LOVE that bloom peace in the rain of our pain.

grace, peace & Bamm-Boozles

Virginia  : (

p.s. for my praying buddies, please lift up the elderly couple – they took the wife away in a stretcher and I pray that they are OK…

p.s.2  a little Holy Hilarity … for faithful readers, you may recall the escapades of Virginia’s Ankle in the far environs of South Africa (read about it here) … guess what? SAME ANKLE injured, yet again. sigh. But, thanx be to God, no huge flights of stairs to manage, et all!

p.s.3 My poor battered car will be assessed by the insurance folks tomorrow. It is just a thing, but it was oh-so-much-fun driving it these past years. My parents got it for me before I left Tanzania (we called it the “Out-Of-Africa-Mobile” – they sent pics to kinda hurry me along, you know, welcome home & all that & here are some spiffy wheels to get you around when you’re back in town.)  So, I didn’t think the damage to my car was so terrible, especially since the whole front of the other car was completely smashed off, but my brother Dwight went to the towing place where it has been stowed. From the pics he took it looks sad, very sad. The whole passenger side will have to be replaced along with some of the hood? ‘Tis not lookin’ too good for the OOAMobile.