Kids, wear your helmets.

I have only had the sinking feeling where you actually don't know if everything is going to be alright three times in my life. The first time was when my family was on a cruise in the Cayman Islands and my mom fell from the second story of a boat to the first. Thankfully, she only ended up with a lot of bumps and bruises. The second time was the day my dad died. And the third was yesterday.

Having been with a mountain biker for a couple of years now, my biggest fear has always been a phone call saying Mark had been hurt. Well, yesterday I got that call. Mark crashed his bike while going down a steep hill and was thrown from his bike, landing on his head. He was unconscious for a couple of minutes before he regained consciousness and was able to call and tell me what happened. Thank goodness Mark was wearing his helmet, which cracked in half (instead of his head).

I knew it was bad when he couldn't remember the accident at all. Thankfully, Mark was riding with his stepdad and his stepdad's good friend, who is a doctor. Both of them were able to take care of Mark enough so that he was able to get back to the car. I picked him up from their house and knew he wasn't in good shape.

Being the paranoid person I am, I brought Mark home to shower and immediately began calling emergency clinics to see where he could go. Luckily, one of the emergency centers in Plano was able to examine him and take a CT scan of his brain to make sure there was no bleeding. After lots of waiting, the results came back clean (no bleeding, although he does have a concussion and probable cracked ribs) and we left with lots of pain meds in hand. God is good.

In the 30 minutes after Mark first called me with little information to share until he called me back to let me know he was on his way home, I was a nervous wreck. I couldn't stop crying. After losing my dad, the thought of losing someone I love as much as Mark is a paralyzing fear to me everyday.

As a million thoughts raced through my head. I had that same sinking feeling I did the day I lost my dad. It's the helplessness of being able to do nothing. And all I could think the entire time is that the stupid little things I'd been nagging at Mark about the day before seemed so... stupid. I started thinking about all of the times that I'd brought him down for no reason when instead, I should have been building him up.

I think sometimes it takes an absolutely paralyzing moment to make you realize how you wish you treated the people you love. The thought of something happening to my husband makes me want to encourage him every single day and look past the little things I would typically nag about. This life is too fleeting to dwell on the little things. You just don't know what tomorrow brings, so today is what really matters, and I fully intend to smother my husband with love as much as I can from here on. :)

Don't let the smiling fool you, he was pretty out of it at this point.
Nolan was trying to help his boo boos.