Black Cat Sprinting

Happy Halloween! I absolutely love Halloween! I love to see all the costumes, eat all the candy and blame it on everyone else.  I love the idea of watching scary movies. As kids, at our house we never really watched scary movies.  It wasn't because we weren't allowed or anything, we just didn't.  I know its hard imagine, but not everyone had a VCR in their house.  We didn't.  We RENTED the VCR at the same time that we rented the tape. The less scary movies in our house, the less chance we would end up in the bed with our parents.  My parents like to brag that we were 14 before we slept in our own bed, but they are exaggerating a bit- it was more like 11 or 12. I think that the idea of being scared is much more fun than actually being scared.  Now being scared is just a part of life.  Sometimes we just can't help it. 

When we were little, our neighbors- the Ketchums', went out of town.  They had a very mean evil cat named Tom.  Michelle asked me to go and feed and water Tom while they were gone.  Tom, the most hissing cat I'd ever seen, had a particular hatred for my brother.  Whenever Heath and I would go there to play, that cat would stare and growl at Heath.  It never missed an opportunity to mess with Heath's head- always snarling at Heath whenever he was there. Anyway,  I was feeling really nice,  so I made Heath go with me to feed the devil cat.  We unlocked the door walked in.  The lights were off, so navigating around wasn't easy.  I found the food and poured it into the bowl and filled up the water bowl with water, with Heath as close to my heels as he could be.  We looked like Scooby Doo and Shaggy creeping around the dark house.  (I'm not really sure why I didn't turn on more lights, probably because I was threatened not to leave any on and not to make a mess.) Tom was no where in sight.  I tried to call her out, to no avail.  I told Heath that I figured the cat was outside and we should just go.  Just as we turned to go out the door Tom made a throaty snarl and we both sort of froze.  Then out of nowhere, Tom jumped out of a dark corner right onto Heath's calve. It looked like something out of a ninja movie when Heath did sort of a donkey kick behind him to thwart the feline attack.  Then he screamed so loud and sissy-like a 6 year old girl would have been ashamed. He flew past me like Death itself was chasing him. I swear I saw a little cloud of dust and if we hadn't left the door open,  Rodney and Tracie would have had to replace the door because of the Heath shaped hole in it.  I don't think I've ever seen his little short legs move so fast.  He ran the whole way home.  I left ole Tom with her food and bad attitude.  I could barely walk home because my side hurt from all the laughing I did.  I couldn't wait to get home and ask him what he thought got him back there  because he never turned around to see what it was.  I'm not sure if he EVER forgave that cat and come to think of it I don't think he ever went back into the Ketchum's house for that matter.

In the first 3 days whenever we didn't know if Heath was going to be OK, I have never been so scared in my whole life. It was a true living horror movie. Now that we are past that - new fears have emerged both for Heath and us.    "What am I going to be able to do when I get home? Am I going to hurt?   Who will be there? " The questions that Heath has are understandable.  Some of  them  he has verbalized and some I just know he's thinking.  The one thing that he wants more than anything is to come home but it's not as easy as just coming home and going back to his regular life.  Not knowing is the scary part.  Everything we do and everything that Heath faces now is new territory for all of us.  We don't have a crystal ball to foresee the future and that is terrifying to all of us.  What we do know is that Heath will need many hours of physical therapy.  We know he will be coming home soon, possibly as soon as 10 -14 days.  We know he will need his family to help him through his transition from hospital to home.  And we know he will not be getting a cat.  Even though that is all we have wanted and hoped for in 68 days, now that it is upon us it will be a big change.  We can't walk outside and ask a nurse when we don't have the answers. We aren't going to have the comfort and convenience of having everything we need for whatever comes up.  Throughout all of this we have lived on prayers and faith and we know that we will make it through and Heath will do just fine. Even though we don't know how tomorrow will turn out we know that we will be able to handle things.  Our family is closer and stronger than we were before.  What we have learned through this process is : we face things head on - not with our eyes shut, even during the scary parts- we don't cut and run.  We can't wait for the next chapter - scary or not. 

'Til Tomorrow

p.s. Heath got a pain pump a few days ago and the pain is so much better - so thank you for all the prayers !!!!