A bad day or a good day?

Every now and then a memory from my childhood creeps in my head.  It was New Years day in 1983, I was 7 years old and the family was out at Grandpa's ranch to play in the snow.  There were big open fields, perfect for snowmobiling so we were all out there have a grand old time.  Our recollections are a little different, but I'll go with my folks.  I was riding/driving sitting in front of my Grandpa and he thought that I could handle flying solo, so he hopped off.  I drove the snowmobile for probably not very far and hit a bump (I remember it as a jump) anyway, probably not something I was ready for.  In panic, I threw a death grip on the handlebars.  Now for those of you that are not snowmobile savvy the throttle is on one side of the handle bars and the more you press the lever with your thumb the faster you go.  Death grips and thumb throttles don't jive.


Over the fields I go, Dad running after me, and I went over a little rise out of the view of everyone present.  The first real indication that bad things happened was when my folks, Grandpa and Mary (Grandpa's wife) saw the top of a pine tree shake and heard a crunch.  Yup, I stopped with a little help.  A little tidbit of info.... no helmet.  I don't remember much of that day after I hit the jump bump.  There is a little spot with Dad and Grandpa loading me back on the snowmobile to get me up to the house and on to the hospital.  The next thing I remember was laying on a gurney and if I tried to sit up I'd get dizzy and throw up blood then back to nothing else about the hospital.

Grandpa felt horrible, and I'm sure everyone was terrified.  Story goes that Mom, Mary and Chris were in a different car behind us and came into the hospital after we did.  My dear brother Chris, who was 5 at the time, looks at me on the gurney and says "Gee, Grandpa, Scott looks dead!"  Nice one bro.  

Anyway,  the hospital in Newport takes Xrays of both sides of my noggin and the tech mislabeled which side they were.  So the Doc looks at the "left" side which at this time was all swelled up and so on and says I didn't break anything.  Good to go right?  Nope.  After a couple days at home (pictures below) the people at the hospital in Spokane take a look at the Xrays and tell my folks to get me in right away.  They take some more Xrays and I broke my left cheekbone in three places and caved it in.  Surgery, a wire (that is still there) and a pin later and I'm good as new.  Apparently, one of the fractures pinched a nerve and that took care of most of the pain, so that was a good.  I don't ever remember being in a tremendous amount of pain, aside from a killer head ache.  So I broke my face and had a dinger of a concussion.  Best guess since no one actually saw the crash, was that my head found the center of the handlebars and I was small enough that the front of the snowmobile caught me instead of me being launched over it.

The (couple months) before picture... with my lil bro

In between hospitals

Close up.  Can't really tell my cheekbone is caved in because of the swelling.

Purely to lighten the mood.  Early melancholy.

Grandpa parked the snowmobile under a tree and didn't touch it for a good number of years, and, though he never told me, I heard that he had nightmares about it for a while as well.  After all, I was his first grandchild and a grandSON to top it off.  

So, if you are asking "whats up with the good day stuff?" here's my answer.  I whole-heartily believe that God was looking out even before I had a relationship with Him.  From bump to tree was a over hundred yards at least.  The tree I hit was a young one, just a few inches in diameter with a good amount of spring to absorb the impact and judging by the damage to the snowmobile I hit it dead on.  I'm not a geometry wiz but, if I would have hit the bump degree different either way I would have missed that little tree and ended up in some more mature trees with less or no spring or worse yet a barbwire fence.  Either way, I wouldn't be telling you this story and a lot of lives would be completely different.  Call it luck, call it coincidence, call it whatever you want.  I know God was looking out for me and my family, including future family, that day.  He didn't cause it to happen, but He made sure I came out of it.  It was a bad day at that moment, but as I reflect on it every now and then, I believe it was a good day.  It serves as a reminder to me that God cared about me and my family, before I ever knew Him and I'm forever grateful for that.

Enjoy your day!