Flash From the Past: An Attitude of Gratitude

Thanksgiving is coming around this week. There is this tradition is Nate's family where we go around the table and everyone says something they are thankful for. I don't really like doing that... just because it always makes me cry. I don't really like to cry in front of everyone... yet I do it often. I am just so humbled by my many blessings. My wonderful family, a roof over our head, an income. I am also grateful for Savior who loves me and gave me the ultimate gift, a chance for eternal life. There is just so much to be grateful for, even or should I say especially in the scary, changing world.

This year I am going to share a story about a day unlike the others in my life. A day when life was put into perspective for me. A day when I realized how grateful I should be for each day. This will get long .... just warning you now...

Of course I can't just start with this day... It wasn't really just a day... It was months in the making, followed by one of the worst weeks of my life, followed by this "day".

In 2002 Nate was working for the Salt Lake Olympic Committee. The Olympics came and went and he was left looking for a job in a job market that was over saturated with people all looking for a job. After four months of looking he found a job out of state. It was a traveling job (Monday-Friday). At first his company just flew him back to Salt Lake on the weekends. Then they decided they wanted him to move. We put our house up for sale and got ready to move. During the time James was in 1st grade and the other three were still too young for school. I had never lived farther than 20 minutes from my parents or Nate's parents since we had been married and started having kids. Nate would still be traveling throughout the week and home only on the weekends.

In some ways I looked forward to a new adventure, but mostly I was scared out of my wits.

We moved the last week on November. I had to drive to the new place 450 miles away from home. I think I cried for at least 400 of those miles.

When we got to our new home it was bitter cold and windy! I learned very quickly that that was just winters in the city of Casper, WY. On the way our U-haul broke down and it had to be towed to the home the next day. I can't even remember what we did that first night. I think we slept in out travel trailer parked at a Walmart or in front of the house or something.

The U-haul arrived the next day. We actually had a load of people (from out new ward) show up to help unload it. That was good.

All the men from Salt Lake who had come up to help with the moving stuff went back to Salt Lake.... and we were left all alone to figure out our new life. That would be a struggle for the next couple of years. Lots of trials, but lots of growth along the way... but that is for another day.... Nate was able to stay in town and work for a couple of days and I worked on finding a school for James (which was really a very different process that what it was in Salt Lake).

Nate was scheduled to leave early in the morning on December 2nd 2003. James was going to start his first day of school at the new school and we were hit with a nice Wyoming storm the night before. Nate was towing around his travel trailer and staying at RV parks in the places he was working. He had gotten it all ready the night before. He woke up early (around 5am) and took off for Colorado. The second he left the house I had an anxiety attack. I knew something wasn't right. I ended up just laying in bed waiting for the phone to ring. I knew it was going to. I don't know how to explain it, but I just knew that something really bad was going to happen. I got out of bed and said a prayer. About 7:30 Nate called. He had lost control of the truck. Both the travel trailer and the truck were totaled AND he was fine. I was actually mad at him. His happy go lucky attitude thinking he can haul a 29 foot travel trailer behind him in a snow storm. It actually took seeing the smashed up truck (which I did the next day) for me to realize how lucky I was that he was still with us. He has always been an avid seat belt wearer. That save his life for sure, but there was also some divine intervention. The whole cab on the truck was smashed in EXCEPT the part that he was sitting in... There were no windows left. He had to get out of the car by climbing out of the window. The person who saw it happen came running up to the car... he was shocked that anyone was alive in the truck let alone able to jump out of it. Nate had glass all over him and was sore, but he checked out just fine at the hospital and was able to come home a couple of hours later.

In the meantime I was busy being angry at him for wrecking his new $20,000 travel trailer and trying to get my first grader ready for his first day of school. James was really excited to be starting school. We were close enough he was going to be able to walk which was really neat for him. He asked if he could walk all by himself... I told him I would let him walk, but I had to follow him in the car. He started walking up the road (the school was just right up the road) while I put the other three kids in the car. All three of the other kids were still in car seats and it took about 2-3 minutes to get them all in. As I drove up the road I couldn't see James anywhere. I wondered if he had decided to run and was lighting fast or something. I drove to the school hoping beyond hope that he was there, but he wasn't. I had lived in the subdivision for a couple of days and didn't know my way around. I left the school and drove around screaming out his name. I couldn't find him anywhere. I went back to the school and had a total melt down in the principal’s office. I had lost my five year old in a strange place and I couldn't find him and he had disappeared so quickly I didn't know where he could have gone that fast. The school started making calls and James was found by a bus driver about ten minutes later. He was wondering around the subdivision lost. (Longest ten minutes of my life!!! ) I guess you should make sure your kid realized where "up the road" is, before you let them out of your sight.

After that morning, I was ready to go back home. I wanted my mom. I figured that I was being sent the signal that we had totally made a wrong choice in moving and I was ready to pack back up a U-haul and go back to where I came from. We hadn't sold the house. Nate could come visit us once a month or something. I needed my moms. I needed people to tell me it was going to be ok and give me hugs and send me on my way stronger than I was. Those people were back in Salt Lake.

It would be a couple of days before I realized what I had been given that day. In my mind I had almost lost the two most precious things to me in the world. My husband and my child. But I was given a gift that day. Though I refer to it as the most horrible day in my world... I also find it to be the day I was given the greatest blessings. I was given an opportunity to see that what I had with me in that cold windy city of Casper WY was everything that I needed. That as long as we were together as a family everything else would be ok. I was also given the realization that things could be much worse and I had SOOOOO very much to be grateful for. I still missed my family back in Salt Lake A LOT, but I could visit them (which I did often).

The next few months were hard... heck life is hard. I won’t say it was easy from there on out, I had a lot to adapt too, but I was able to look at life a little differently and be grateful for what I had and not focus on all I didn’t. (Though I tend to be a pessimist I am a very grateful one, ya know ;-) )

So there is my Thanksgiving story. It happened only a few days after Thanksgiving so it totally counts. :-)