lesson learned

Our last autumn was tough.  I mean, tough.  As in, October our car was totaled with Kellan and me in it on the way to school.  A family member had a bone marrow transplant that required Nathan to spend his Friday-through-Sundays in Pittsburgh.  Since our car accident happened on a Friday morning, he had to leave us in the emergency room to get down to the hospital, and I had to text around to find a friend to bring us home.  The next week our garage door broke with the rental car inside (again while Nathan was on his way to Pittsburgh) and I couldn't get Kellan from school.  On and on and on...

Let me state, this is not a pity party.  I'm just setting the scene for what was, for us, a really challenging time.  Our life plans seemed to be put on hold and we were left wondering why why why.  (Oh, did I mention that our new, certified-preowned car turned out to be a lemon?  The first day I drove it to school it died in the carpool line)

Oops.  I forgot this isn't a pity party.

Here's what happened next:

The family member got to go home from the hospital early

A very kind garage door repairman heard the panic in my voice and dropped everything to come right over to get me out in time to get my son from school.

I was surrounded by love as a dear friend picked Kellan up from school, kept him at her house, and fed him dinner while we went emergency car shopping.  Did I mention that she did this on the fly because I called her as we were stuck in traffic and couldn't get home until after bedtime?

The other driver claimed complete fault for the accident.

A friend left her work to come get us at the emergency room.

The Subaru dealership (Day Subaru on West Liberty Avenue in Pittsburgh) took back our car, apologized and offered us a wonderful deal on a brand new one.  Who does that?  Jeff and Tony at Day Subaru.  They said if you don't have your integrity than you don't have anything.  Not your stereotypical car dealer.

My books made it successfully to the publishing stage.

Another important thing:

On a Wednesday afternoon while all this craziness was happening, Nathan called me from work.  "The circus is in town," he said.  "I think we should go."  

At that moment, the circus seemed like the most irresponsible, expensive thing we could possibly do.  "No," I said.  "We don't have the money, or a car, or the time."  But Nathan was pretty adamant, and so off to the circus we went.  

I can't describe what that did for our family.  Nathan said we needed to do something fun and he was so right.  He stopped by the dollar store on his way home from work and bought $20 worth of glowsticks, necklaces, bracelets, light up rings, and glow-in-the-dark swords.  Let me tell you that $20 will go a long way in the 'glow aisle' of the Dollar Tree.  We drove into Pittsburgh through a beautiful autumn sunset.  Somehow the promise of the circus helped us to leave off the endless discussions about value for money, gas costs piling up, scary garage door bills, Kellan's hard time with Daddy being gone.  We just had fun.

The life lesson here is obvious.  But just to make sure I don't forget, here is the reminder: 

  The Circus Came to Town, 2015.