Tuesday, January 23, 2007

All In A Day


Waking up in the dark was never pleasant to me. That annoying alarm would chime, waking me from a battle with aliens from another galaxy: they would have to wait for another night to resolve our conflict. My mom placed the clock on the other side of my room, so I would have to get out from my warm cocoon and traverse the cold, perilous, toy-laden walkway from my bed to the dresser to shut it off. School beckoned and the day was already clamoring for my appearance.

Stumbling around, I would find the light. Wow! That was bright! My day began. Clothes were easy to find. My mom provided a nice batch of them for me to put in my drawers every couple of days. Not much in the way of choices here: a white shirt, black pants, and a clip-on tie. Yep, the joys of a school uniform made for little in the way of a fashion conundrum, but the socks, you could make quite a statement with your socks! I had a pair of Ohio State dress socks. On one side was Brutus, (our Buckeye mascot), on the other, a scarlet helmet. These socks were cool and they were my favorite.

I made my way out of my room down to the kitchen: one side of my shirt still untucked, and my clip-on tie hanging in the throws because the top button of my shirt was also unbuttoned. I walked by the mirror and saw my hair. My goodness was it spooky. I looked like Wolverine, from the X-Men Comics. I thought it was great, but I knew what my mom and the nuns would say. Quickly, I made a pit-stop at the bathroom, and doused my glorious crown with some water.

On to breakfast! The cereal de jour? Peanut Butter-Cap’n Crunch of course! The greatest cereal ever made. I had my Speed-racer bowl, a spoon, and I would take the whole gallon of milk and lug it to the table. I had to make sure there was plenty of milk in the bowl for me to drink at the end of my cereal feast!

About this time, my mom would make her appearance with a brush and some bows for my sister. I was so thankful that I didn’t have long hair. Watching my mom work the knots out of her hair was painful, and I wasn’t the one who was getting it! I got spanked way more than Trish, but my sister was punished every morning. At some point my mom would look over at me and insist that I come over for a second and let her ‘fix’ my hair. I would resistively comply.

It was time to head to the bus stop. In the middle of winter, we weren’t allowed to hang out at the stop for too long. In fact, because the bus made a loop around our neighborhood, my mom would wait until she saw it before releasing us to go there. These last five minutes were always a panic in our house. ‘Have you got your lunch? Homework? Is there anything that I need to sign? Have you thought about confession?’ The normal pre-bus grilling went by without a hitch. It was on to school. Just a normal day, in the life of… well… me!

The bus ride to school was the first sign of real problems. My friend Charles asked me how I did on the math homework. ‘What math homework?’ Uh oh! I totally forgot that it was due! Quickly I scrounged in my book bag for some paper. ‘Charles, I need to look at yours!’, with hesitance he shows me his, but I couldn’t do it. If we get caught we both would get in trouble. I hand it back, and just ask to borrow his math book. I’m writing like a madman, fortunately math was easy for me. I got them done just as the bus is pulling into the parking lot. ‘Thanks Chaz for the book.’ Charles smiled, and I think he breathed a sigh that I did it without copying his. Truthfully though, part of the reason I didn’t copy his was that he wasn’t very good at math: I was no saint.

Whew! One bullet dodged. What else was heading my way? Homework! Homework! Homework! Every class, the teacher was piling more of this stuff on to our plate. Doesn’t she want us to have a life? This is going to take all afternoon! At least it was lunch and recess time! My friend Mike would trade lunch parts with me. We both would get in line and get our chocolate milk and divvy up our lunch booty. We had to hurry if we were going to make it to the ‘games’. We scarfed down our food like a pack of rabid dogs and headed for the front parking lot.

At St. Matthew’s, we had a parking lot as a play ground. On most days, there was four-square, tetherball, and a game of asphalt-soccer. On icy-days, we’d play a game of ‘ice-running’. Now this was not like hockey with skates: it was running around in our dress-shoes trying not to break our necks. Mike and I loved playing. He, and his brother Sam, had great balance. I, on the other hand, was a bit less… umm… ‘coordinated’, but it never stopped me from trying. This year, playing on the ice was particularly interesting because it was during the winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria.

Many of us would go home after school and watch Americans like Peter Meuler’s race for our country. I think he ended up with one or two medals, but I know he struck gold once. It inspired us to go run around the ice even more. So Mike and I made our way into the running ranks. We’d use book bags to mark the corners of the ‘track’, and someone would act as the ‘officiator’ of the games. It was my turn and I was in a good heat. The pack I was running with weren’t the strongest. I figured I could take them all and make it to the next heat. Sure enough, my heart started pounding faster as the ‘official’ said ‘on your mark’. By the time he said ‘Go!’ my heart was ready to burst. A spastic flow of energy disseminated though my body: every muscle came to life in awkward beauty.

The trick in ice running was maintaining control around the corners. There were many ways to do this. Mike and Sam could do the corners with ease: their coordination allowed them to walk the line between balance and speed. I relied on my motivation. I made it through the first two corners without issue and was well ahead of the pack on the back-straight when my trouble arose. It seems that a car must have spun its wheels on the ice leaving a nearly invisible layer of sand on it. What was invisible to the eye was quite apparent to the feet. As I sloshed through the ice, all of the sudden my shoes acquired traction and it sent me flying through the air.

It is funny how time slows in moments of panic like this. I was in the air long enough to know that when I hit, it was going to hurt: I was not left disappointed. On a non-icy surface your hands will break the fall, though they may get a little scuffed in the process, it is better than hitting your noggin. On ice, you can put your hands out ahead of you, but as you hit, they will just slide out of the way, allowing for a pretty solid hit on your face. In my case, my chin took the brunt of the blow. Pain rocked my rather puny little body. I was a little dazed too.

As I regained my senses, I noticed a large crowd had gathered around me. Some looked at me like I was one of those science exhibits from COSI, others looked like they were watching a horror movie. Mike was the first through the crowd to come down and actually try to help me. It was then that I looked down and saw the problem. My shirt was drenched in blood, and my chin was hurting pretty badly. I remained pretty calm, but inside I wanted to cry, eventually the cry in me won and I literally screamed in pain. Mike did his best to comfort me as someone else ran and got one of the priests.

Father Smith quickly scurried out there, and before long, I was moved into the nurse’s office where I was given a blanket, hot chocolate, and told that my parents would be there shortly. Everybody was great to me. The principal, a lady whom I was re-introduced to every so often, was particularly nice. I finally made my way to an emergency room, where this unwilling patient was sewn back together. I believe it was fifteen stitches in my chin which required my dad to hold me still for the entire ‘operation’.

When I woke up that morning I had no idea what was in store for me on that day. Life’s many curves left me unprepared for the events that took place. God shares this with us too:

Luke 12:16-20 (NKJV)

16 Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ 20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?

There are many lessons here but two primarily stick out. The first is to store up treasures where they will matter. The second one is that we cannot ‘see’ the future. As we prepare for our day, we are not guaranteed it. Rich Mullins wrote a song once called ‘Live Right’:

Live like you’ll die tomorrow
Die knowing you’ll live forever… Live right!

Each day matters and the course of that day, even when we walk hand in hand with God, is not certain: our destination may be, but the path is still up in the air to us.

As my wife and I have walked though these past few weeks with the challenges of our youngest daughter, we are reminded of how precious life is and how we need to embrace each day, knowing that God is in charge. Our mundane tasks are merely stepping stones along this journey. Each moment should be seized, not just accepted: to the Glory and Honor of our God and Creator. God has poured His life into us, let us revel in its wonder!

In my older days, I still cringe on ice thinking of those spills, but that little slip didn’t phase me: I even bumped my chin a few more times, and up to that point of pain, it was still very fun. I want to greet each day with that kind of zeal!

God Bless
Doug

Labels: , ,

5 Comments:

Blogger pearlie said...

Hi Doug,
I figured you would have been tied down with home and have been praying for you. I will continue the prayers more fervently. Drop me an email if you need me to pray more specifically, otherwise my prayers are that God's love will be more and more experienced and real to you and all at home.

God bless!

Tue Jan 23, 08:08:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Doug,

You paint such a wonderful picture with words. Then you brought tears to my eyes. Your daughter will fair well because of you and your wife love her so.

Tue Jan 23, 08:14:00 PM  
Blogger DougALug said...

Meaghan,

Thank you so much for your prayers. I have to tell you, that all things considered, we are really doing well.

I am 100 percent again, and just catching up with all of my dropped balls.

We have been to six specialists for Elizabeth, and other than needing some ocupational therapy for her left side, she has been given a clean bill of health. The biggest one for me was this week with the neural surgeon because they were talking about opening her head to relieve pressure on the brain. The surgeon took a look at the MRI and took some measurements of her and said that he wouldn't touch a hair on her head: she was perfectly fine. Hearing this was like a major weight being lifted off of my chest.

Again, thank you for your prayers and concern.

God Bless
Doug

Wed Jan 24, 11:28:00 AM  
Blogger DougALug said...

Milly,

You guys (well gals Pearlie/Maeghan, and you) are great. Thanks so much for the prayers and kind words.

I glad you enjoy my posts. I love writing them. I wish I had more time to do more. All of you guys humble me with your ability to constantly output like you do. Working double-shifts isn't helping that though.

And for the record, I couldn't love my girls enough: they are awesome (wife included here).

God Bless
Doug

Wed Jan 24, 11:31:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Doug,
I love how you love them! I'm glad to hear that they aren't going to touch that precious little head. I was born pigeon toed therapy was a great help. Years from now she’ll think it only a memory. She might write as well as you. :-}

Wed Jan 24, 07:07:00 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home