With tears streaming down my face, I listened to a beautiful woman share the trials her family walked through just a decade prior. I couldn’t help but think, it’s going to hit us soon too…
And it did.
A week and a half later, on Thursday, Sept 27th, 2018, I answered the phone and heard my mom sniffle. I knew what she was going to say before she said it. She said it anyway because she knew I needed to hear it.
“Grandpa is gone.”
“When?” my voice barely a whisper as my vision grows blurry with unshed tears.
“About thirty minutes ago.”
After a good cry and night sleep, I folded laundry the next day and allowed myself to grieve and process. I was reminiscing the times my grandpa made me a chocolate malt, or the times he would sneak up to me with a twinkle in his eye and whisper, “pull my finger.” I remembered his love for Sudoku and how a book was never too far away. I smiled as I recalled his love for the word “tremendous.” I tried to process what the upcoming holidays would be like without him and cried many tears all over again. I am so thankful for the years I had with him; how he never shied away from making memories with me or reminding me of the memories he had stored.
It’s now Saturday and I’m at a wedding, wearing a leopard-print blouse, black pencil skirt, black nylons, and black peep-toe kitten heels. I took time on my hair and make-up… (It had been a long time since we’d had a date night!) Mama was looking & feeling good. On the way to the wedding, my mother-in-law sent me a text message and asked us to take a picture so she could put a new one of us up on her fridge.
An hour and a half later, while waiting for the wedding party to arrive to the reception, I wasn’t so sure that picture was going to happen… Mama wasn’t feeling so good; in fact, mama wasn’t feeling good at all. I excused myself from the table and all but ran to the bathroom. Thankfully, I hadn’t eaten much that day, so nothing was close to coming up. I texted my husband and told him we needed to go home immediately. Sickness had been weaving in and out of our family for a few days with our boys, but I hadn’t gotten hit. I never get hit, unless it’s a mild cold. Looks like those probiotics weren’t going to save me this time and mama was going down.
That night, another child went down, and the next day, another… By this time, I was mentally singing, “dun, dun, dun… Another one bites the dust! And another one gone, and another one gone… Another one bites the dust!” Positivity, am I right?
Within three days, our family of six was taken out by illness. We have never all been down at the same time. Normally, my husband and I can tag team, but that wasn’t going to happen. (I feel I should mention that during this, all of our family was out-of-state so we had no reserves to call in!) I have never had to wash so much bedding all at one time (over and over again). One child even got it on the curtains! THE CURTAINS. They say love is a battlefield and our house was a war zone…
It’s now Monday and we are getting things in order to make the journey out-of-state for the funeral. We had to find a place to stay – dog and all – and after our truck died that afternoon, we made an appointment with our mechanic to look over and change the oil in all our vehicles on the next day.
On Tuesday, October 2nd, I realized while juggling dropping off and picking up of vehicles and children at their different schools, that it’s our oldest son’s 7th birthday! (I had his party planned for a weekend a few weeks away and with everything happening forgot to do SOMETHING to acknowledge the birthday boy! Cue the mom guilt and every #MOMFAIL ever.) I ran to Target while he was at school and got him some Lego’s. I called my dad (he had just gotten back from being with the family and was going to be heading back up when we go too) and I asked if he’d be able to meet us for dinner to celebrate. While none of us really felt all that great, we still managed to make it a good night for him and he was thrilled with the Lego’s.
On Wednesday morning, the sleepless nights, the illness, the stress, the passing of my beloved grandpa, the impending 8.5 hour drive, was all adding up and I was tired. I was more than tired though, I was weary. I think I cried four times before 9:30 A.M. that day. I told a few friends how I was feeling and asked if they could pray for me.
A few hours later, I’m on the way to preschool pick-up and my battery light starts flashing. (Mind you, we just had this vehicle in the shop the day before.) Pretty soon, my radio shuts off and says “low battery.” I pull out after picking up my child and as I turn onto the main road, I realize the van has no blinkers, no lights, and it’s not accelerating. I quickly pull into the parking lot across the street, and I grab my phone. I’m at 8% battery.
I call my friend who I’m hoping is still in the preschool parking lot. She is able to come over and help me. Now, let me pause here and talk about this girl…
Caysey is the type of friend who will drop everything and jump into action to help you. She had a charger for my phone. She called her dad for help while my family was unavailable. She ran to get jumper cables and she gave me a diaper and wipes to change my kids’ poopy diaper. (Did I mention I forgot to grab the diaper bag?! GAH! “Let’s add some explosives to this cauldron of crazy!”) I literally sat back while she took care of everything. It was amazing and blessed me so much. I don’t think she knows how much it meant to me – what it still means to me that she was able to stop and help me get my van working again. She even followed me home to make sure I got home safe. People might say that’s what most people would do, but I would argue that. I don’t think that’s not what most people would do, because most people would be too busy. Too busy at work, too busy with their families, too busy with their own plans. Too busy to be inconvenienced with my inconvenience… Caysey took it on and if you had seen the look on her face, she was going to conquer the situation. I never had a doubt in my mind that that girl was going to get me and my babies home one way or another.
Through the multiple conversations with her dad (who is also amazing!), they knew it was most likely the alternator. So, we had a problem… even if the mechanic could get us in today, would he even be able to fix it in time for us to leave tomorrow morning for the funeral? And even he could, how in the world would we get the vehicle to him? My husband was on the other side of town with a landscaping mess on his hands and a crew working with him. He wasn’t about to come to my rescue anytime soon. So, I started looking at renting van.
By this point, its in the afternoon, I was exhausted, my house was a mess because we had all just been sick and no one wants to come home to a messy house that smells like sickness. I still hadn’t packed my family of 6 (and our dog!) for our trip. I wanted to panic. I took a deep breath and thought, there has to be another option. God, I need you to do something about this.
I posted on my social media, “If you are a praying person, Team Refsland could really use them right now.” Then, I pulled up my big girl pants and went to work. I picked up my house, washed the dirty dishes, and I made the decision we would find something to wear for the funeral and I wasn’t going to do any laundry. By the time my dad contacted me with different solutions to my problem, the girls were packed. (Two down, five to go…)
My dad and I ended up deciding if he could replace the alternator, that would be the best. He went and got his tools, picked up the piece, came over and fixed it. By then, I had packed the boys. He stayed for dinner before heading to the airport to get my sister who was flying in that night for the funeral.
When he went to leave, HIS truck wouldn’t start! HOW STINKING CRAZY IS THAT?!?! The men folk tried jumping it but their effort was for not. He ended up taking our small car to go pick her up and left his truck at our place. When they came back from the funeral, they ended up towing it to the mechanic.
My husband and I often refer to it as the hardest week of our lives. The night after I was up all night being sick, I was up with our youngest daughter until midnight and then every hour after that. She would sit up and say, “mommy, toilet,” and I would grab her and put a bucket under her chin. She never made it to the toilet without needing that bucket. One of the most horrifying and disturbing moments of my life was when we were making the switch off from the bucket to the toilet and I fumbled the puke bucket! It went everywhere… I’ll never look at a ham sandwich the same, ever again.
That Wednesday night before we left, my husband and I laid in bed thinking about everything we were thankful for… Thankful the sickness hit before we left home and not while we were on the road… Thankful the alternator went out when it did instead of while we were traveling the long, lonely roads through North Dakota during their first snow fall… Thankful someone was immediately there to help me when no one else was around… Thankful my dad had the experience and tools to fix the alternator for us in our driveway… Thankful we had a spare car for him to take… Later thankful my sister was able to use that car and visit friends before she had to catch her return flight home to Denver.
Sometimes we only see everything that went wrong. It’s a discipline to develop a new way of thinking – to see how things went right. I know it was the prayers of everyone that afternoon when they saw my social media post asking for prayer.
“Prayer is never a last line of defense. It’s our first line of offense.” – Craig Groeschel
I think I treated prayer like a last line of defense that day. For I know it would have gone better for me had I been in prayer for protection, health, and for no “pumps in the road,” I am forever thankful that He will still move for us as a last line of defense too.
Thank you to everyone who helped us that day either in the physical or spiritual. It meant more than you know when our spirits were troubled and weary, lacking in words, you were there. We are humbled and blessed to know so many people willing to fight and intercede on our behalf. You are loved, so much. Thank you.
TeamRefsland 