Third try for this post-still MLK Day. I have thought of this topic often, like how thankful I am that we made it to Disney, how thankful I was that we had your graduation party, the time on the Saturday before with the Bushes, etc. (which I thanked them for in the TY note). But for some reason (God) it occurred to me how much extra time we were given with you and that it was from God since He knew the number of your days (as He knows all of ours), but He knew that you had less days left than us.
The things keep coming to mind, so I don't want to forget them: the fact that we had the week of Aug 15-Aug 22 reserved at the Kamp but we cancelled it. One way to look at it is, what if we had all gone Up North that week, would you still have died since you wouldn't have been in the car accident? Your days were numbered, so would you have died a different way up there? That would have been even more horrible as well to be so far from home, U of M Hospital, etc. My thinking is that you might not have gone up with us and it would have been even worse if we were up there when it happened and had to make the 12-hour trip down that Thursday. It's confusing to me to think of things this way, because there are so many what if's. The bottom line is, God foreknew and took this out of the equation long ago. I didn't even realize this was the same week until recently when I noticed 2016 Kamp requests and pulled up our 2015 request. I hadn't been interested in going anyway, but Dad set it up just to reserve a week. I don't know why I don't like going up there anymore-mostly the drive, I think. And then once we're there, it's kind of boring and we never have any money to do anything fun. I wonder if we'll ever go back again. I know once you said you wouldn't mind going up there again, but I don't think you cared too much.
Here's another one: the lake with the Bush family. I didn't realize until recently that the date of it was the last Saturday before your accident, 8/15/2015. I saw that date on some pictures they posted and the video of you tubing. We had tried to plan other dates to go here and there but this was the one that worked out. They wanted to get us out on their boat and that day Dad had promised that you two would help Bill Ortell move, so you came out later. I was ok with meeting them earlier and following them out there Hope and Carter. That's unusual for me to be ok with carrying on a conversation on my own, etc. and I remember even Hope asking why we were going. I just knew I didn't want to waste the day waiting for Dad to be done and then going out then. You guys got there quite a bit later, but it was still a blast. You had plans that night, I think to go to Jake's lake house (didn't know lake house was two words-thanks, autocorrect!), so I knew that we wouldn't have spent that day together with you otherwise.
The best part of that day, even then I must say, was watching you tubing behind the boat. Kevin (Mr. Bush, not to be confused with Mr. Bush at the high school) is really experienced at driving a boat, and you and Carter were back there together at first on two separate tubes. It was hilarious because you could tell how much experience you had by the way you were flipping the tube around and moving it, and Carter was just holding on for dear life with such a serious look on his face, looking straight ahead.You, on the other hand, were laughing your head off and trying to bump into Carter. I remember telling everyone about this early in the week. I pretty much laughed non-stop the whole time you and Carter were tubing.
After that, Kevin asked if you wanted to get a little "crazy". You, of course, said "yes" so we brought Carter in and you were just being pulled behind the boat while Kevin zigged and zagged all over the lake. That lake is huge by the way-I think it was Wampler's Lake. You did pretty well, although he flipped you a few times. That was great to watch as well. Even though I always felt bad that we couldn't provide you with a lake house like the Aulisas' and weekend lake life, it was nice to enjoy that with you. I will be forever grateful for that day.
Another big one is the trip to Disney. I promised that I would get you there before you graduated and this was the last chance! We still weren't doing great, money-wise, but found out that Grandma Joonie's cousin Jane was trying to give away Disney Vacation Club points that she couldn't use because of her husband's ailing physical condition. At the time, I didn't even know what that meant other than she had a condo or something that we could use for a trip down there. I didn't even know if we would have to pay her or what, but when I started looking into the trip, I asked Grandma Joonie to ask Jane about it. Jane said she had a lot of built-up points she couldn't use, so I got in touch with her.
How this worked is Jane has been a Disney Vacation Club member for some time and once you make a large down payment and make annual payments, it's like you own a little bit of property in Disney resorts. Every year, you are allotted points that you can use towards renting an available spot in any of the Disney resorts. We found out later that it takes about 3 years of saving up points to pay for a few nights in a Disney resort. It's just a way for families to save up and stay in nice places on their Disney trips.
Through contact with Jane, we were able to book 3 or 4 nights in an amazing Disney resort, the best part-it was for free! Jane was mostly interested in using up the points so they weren't wasted. Once we set that up for the week of Spring Break (we didn't even realize how nice the room was going to be), we heard from Taryn that she could get free Disney passes for us through ABC. We told her how many we needed and she got to work. Even though she didn't work for ABC anymore, she still had lots of friends who worked there and her boyfriend Buddy works there too. We didn't even know what to expect, but she got us SEVEN free passes! We decided to spend two days at the parks, so we had enough for one day for all of us and then two for a second day. (We decided to leave one day open to do whatever-we ended up being very thankful for that!) The passes from Taryn included the Park Hopper so we planned on going to more than one park that day and then only had to buy three more passes on our own for the second day for Epcot.
I don't have to tell you about the trip-you were there! It was amazing wasn't it? Just being in Florida in March/April was wonderful. The drive was a bear but it was our only choice because plane tickets were so expensive. God MADE that trip happen! I knew that I would've felt so bad if we hadn't have made it there but especially it would have been a huge regret after your accident. Plus it was the best time ever! It was one of my "happy thoughts" along with your graduation party when I would get upset about things, although I have no idea what I would get upset about back then (probably Dad or money-related). The van made it down there and back which was another blessing. You helped so much with the driving! Thank you for that! Another great thing about that trip is we were able to eat a lot of meals in the room since it had the kitchen, so it saved a lot of money on eating out, even though groceries and pizza were expensive there.
Right now I am remembering a little fight that we had when we got home from our first day at the parks. Everyone was getting on me because I was trying to pack a lot into each day, like how I wanted to go to the Hall of Presidents and nobody else wanted to go. You told me that I was ruining our trip by trying to make us do all these things. I know that you are sorry for that. I'm sorry too. We so never fought. I got upset, but I think I was having my period as well (I know you did NOT want to know that). I didn't want everyone to hate me for taking away from the vacation. I am getting a thought that I was the one who made it possible. (If that's you telling me that, thank you!) It was my greatest pleasure. And we have so many wonderful photos of the trip, thanks to you. Thank you for being faithful in trucking that camera all over the place. Unfortunately, I remember how much of a butt Dad was during that trip. He always is though, so why wouldn't this be different. He probably realized how much I had to do with the trip happening and felt insignificant. I don't know though why people lash out in times like that when they are really just feeling bad on their own insides.Remember how nice the room was? It was nicer than our house, which I know isn't saying much. When we first walked in, it was so great just to look around it at and to think we got to live there for a few days. Yay! I probably could have done a whole separate post on Disney-oh, well.
Another thing I remember happening before your accident is the Toledo Mudhens game you went to with Hope. We were at Summerfest during the day and Grandma Joonie said her neighbor Lois had free tickets to the Toledo Mudhens game that night. I am so glad you and Hope decided to go. I know you had a great time together. She told me how, on the way home, you were both singing a lot of traveling songs. What a special time for both of you, always the best of friends (since HS anyway!)
(DumbDumb FatFat! Hope HATES when I remind her of that!)
Speaking of Summerfest reminds me of how you, Hope and Carter spent some time together at Summerfest. Was it a Friday night? We went somewhere and ended up dropping you guys off up there afterwards. I will have to try to remember where we went before that-maybe just out to eat or something. There are such great pictures and videos of what you guys did up there! (Just checked last year's calendar-we had gone to the Postiffs' for dinner that night, which they were thankful for as well. I think on the way home Carter found out that Nina was up there so you guys all wanted to go. I think she ended up leaving by the time you guys got up there. The date was 8/7).
You also had some extra time with Carter on the Wednesday before your accident (I remembered/realized this later too). I was just checking to see when football equipment pick-up days were for his league and the 19th was the last day. We had plans to go to Sonic that night for dinner after I got out of work (I will write about that too) so I asked if you could run him up there to take care of it. (I think it went til 4 so that saved me from having to leave work early. I miss you being able to help like that!) You, being so nice, said yes. I don't know how that went, but I'm glad you had that one-on-one time with Carter as well.
The night before your accident, we went to Sonic for dinner. We had talked about wanting to go there forever, and I tracked one down in Monroe, which was about 40 minutes away. We were going to try to go on Tuesday night, but you asked if we could go on Wednesday night instead. You still had plans after that (to go to Robby C.'s for the bonfire I think), so we left right after I got out of work. You and Carter were pretty quiet on the way there with your earbuds in. It was cool when we got there how we pulled into the bay and ordered and paid at the "sign". They brought the food out and it was really good. It was funny how uneventful it was. Dad didn't go because he had golf that night. We still wanted to go and I am so glad we did.
I will always remember how when you got back from Robby C.'s, you came into our room to say goodnight. You didn't always do that, as I said in the letter that was read at your eulogy. You did the same to Carter and Hope. THANK GOD FOR THAT! I got to see you one last time. I will always remember your silhouette in the doorway.
In addition to all of this, all summer you were hopping from one friend's house to the next. You spent SO MUCH time with SO MANY people. You would go to one person's house and then end up spending the night at someone else's, etc. I know they were thankful for that and it was a blessing to you as well.
What all of this pointed out to me, is that God arranged for all these things since He knew what was going to happen on August 20, 2015. (Sorry-tearing up. Will have to finish later). God knows what we need before we even need it. He knows the desires of our hearts even when we don't. He gave us those extra-special times with you when we didn't even realize how important they were at the time or would be to us in the future. (I just went back and changed "Rob's" to "Robby C's" and remembered how much fun you guys had making that video together! God did that too!)
I want to elaborate on this, but yesterday I was thinking about Sanctity of Life Sunday since it was yesterday and how God knows that all of those babies are going to die/be aborted on a daily basis. I know they are all going to Heaven, but I don't think God just makes them to go right to Heaven a few months after they are conceived. They die because of sin. God knows they are going to die. He can't stop it or chooses not to. The wages of sin is death. He knows the number of their days too. He knew the number of your days. He knows the number of my days. I don't know where I was going with this.
My point is that this (your death) was inevitable. It was a blow. God knew it would be a blow and He softens the blow how He can. Even though He knows that bad things are going to happen, He uses them in the best way possible for our good and for His glory.
This is a mundane, horrible example but it might have helped in this conclusion I came to. Friday night we had a leak in our bedroom in the basement. At the time, we didn't know how the water was coming in, if it was a foundation issue, an issue with the new gutters or what. This bad thing happened because bad things happen in this world. We found out on Saturday that it was a leak from the outside faucet which we thought was turned off but it was not. It could have been a lot worse. It could have been a crack in the foundation which would have cost thousands of dollars to repair. It could have started earlier than it did when nobody was in the bedroom and a lot more water could've gotten in. It could've been in another area of the basement where we didn't notice it for a while and it caused more damage. Bad things happen in this world. They are not God's fault. They are the fault of a sin-cursed world where things go wrong. God knows these things are going to happen but I think sometimes (probably most times or all times) He softens the blow, especially for His own. He is presented with all of these problems that He is not responsible for, but He orchestrates them anyway for us. He has overcome the world. He helps us and wants the best for us and we have to trust that even if/when we don't feel or see it.
I come back to the possible outcomes of your accident. I thought of it again this Sunday when Mrs. Cartwright told me an unpleasant story of a poop accident that Mr. Cartwright that he had that very morning that she had to clean up. His condition is brain-stem related which was what was damaged in your brain. Do I have to even say any more? How horrible would that be to deal with a 17-year-old not having control over such things? I'm sure it's bad enough for a 70-year-old or however old Mr. Cartwright is. Who wants that? That brings me to questions I have about Mr. Cartwright's condition but God has His reasons and purpose for his life as well.
This has strayed quite far from its original intent, but I just wanted to point out that it's a comfort to know that God knew this was coming and prepared us for it in many ways which we we didn't even understand at the time. God is in control always. Praise His Holy Name!
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