In the blink of an eye …
Your whole life can change.
I have had quite a few inquiries lately regarding our website being a little behind. Anyway thought it would be helpful to provide a bit of an explanation. I have been toggling back and forth on whether or not to post this to the blog. Gareth my son was going to be helping me out over the summer with running TheCodeFactory. Along the way we hit another bump in the road less traveled.
Imagine yourself walking across a cross walk at a four way stop on June 5th, on a bright sunny day in the middle of suburbia. As you get ¾ of the across the walkway a mini van blows through the stop sign hitting you so hard you fly over the van flipping thought the air and then landing on your side. Your shoulder is dislocated and broken in 3 places, your hip broken and you have a gash to your head.
You spend the day in emergency (the hospital staff at Queensway Carleton were amazing) and after numerous medical procedures the on duty doctor decides the injury to your shoulder is deemed too complicated to be performed at this hospital. You are transferred to the Civic for the expert surgeon. You spend the night waiting overnight for surgery first thing in the morning
Monday morning arrives and after many hours of surgery the prognosis for the hip is good but the shoulder less certain. A young man on the way to the gym and his family have had their life turned upside down by a driver not paying attention. Many lives change in the blink of an eye. You hear about incidents similar to this all the time but this is something that happens to other people not to you.
Lessons learned out of this;
Life is not fair
The person that hit my son may get a fine and have an increase in insurance rates and then get on with their lives. The driver’s life will probably not change in a substantial way as a result of the accident. Gareth has many months of rehabilitation ahead of him. His life has changed as a result of the accident and it has been huge disruption and source of stress to our entire family.
Life should be cherished
We are very grateful and fortunate that Gareth is still with us. I think about this all the time now. If he had landed the wrong way it could have been a very different story. Please let your kids (or anyone close to you) know regularly how important they are to you.
What is important to you?
It is easy to get wrapped up in all the stuff going on in your life. Sometimes a hard knock can cause you to reflect upon what is really important in your life. Don’t feel like you have to wait for the hard knocks in life to assess what is really important to you.
Ian Graham
