Yesterday was a very strange day. It started at 8:00am with me going to the hospital for what was supposed to have been a D & C because an ultrasound had shown a thickened uterine lining. That’s the stuff that at my age is not supposed to be thickening and could be cancer. But it turned out to be only a fibroid the size of a nickel that the surgeon removed. (I’m so glad I refused to allow myself to worry about speculations in the negative realm!) Because it turned out to be something different than they expected, they had to shuffle around their equipment and the operation took longer than planned, which is why I think my throat hurt this time, when it hasn’t before and why I had more symptoms from the anesthesia than previously. Anyway, though we got home around 3 instead of 1, overall it went well.

Upon returning home we checked the answering service where we discovered a call from my editor informing me that The Enclave is among the nominees in the Visionary category for the 2010 Christy Awards!  Whoa! That was a pleasant and very unexpected surprise. I’d pretty much written off the prospect of having any books nominated again. But how weird to have the call come in the same day I’d been in the hospital. The last time I had to go in for surgery (for my arm) was the day my agent was going to meet with BHP regarding what were then my future books, so how weird to have book events and hospital events coincide again.

But if it doesn’t seem like two momentous events like that should be happening on the same day, how about three?

About two hours later my husband left with Quigley to walk around the park. He was going to bring home dinner on the way back. I went to sleep, during which time the phone rang. I heard the answering machine go off, and then a man’s voice, but it was no one I recognized so I went back to sleep. A little later, Stu and Quigley came home so I got up to meet them. Stu did not have dinner with him. “I’m sorry,” he said, and I’m thinking this has to do with dinner so it took me a few moments to catch up to what he really said: “We were in an accident and I’m afraid your car is totaled.”

Yes, that’s what he said. My car being the official dog-toting car, that’s the one he took to the park. As he was crossing one of the side streets, en route to the park (where the speed limit is 30 mph and people usually drive slower than that), he was broadsided on the passenger side by an oncoming car he never saw till it hit. The Jeep was flipped all the way over to the driver’s side and spun around to face in the opposite direction from where it was originally headed. The windshield was demolished, but neither Stu, nor Quigley, who was traveling free in the back of the car, nor the driver of the other car were injured.  The police officers who investigated said that was really surprising because usually in accidents of this sort there were serious injuries. 

God at work. My car was towed away and I’ll never see it again (I really liked that car) and I thought how swiftly things can be taken. My next thought was that it could as easily have been Stu or Quigley, and I was sooo grateful that it was not. Grateful that they were not harmed in the slightest. We forget so easily how much God works in our lives, how we have not one thing apart from His consent and power, how every single moment is truly in His hands. We forget how little we have control over. In fact, though it may seem otherwise, in the end I think  the only thing we really have control over is our volition…

Oh, and the phone call I mentioned that I didn’t answer? It was one of the police officers calling at Stu’s request to say there was an accident, and that Stu was okay. That was great, except that he said nothing about Quigley, who, traveling without a seat belt or crate or anything, was the one I’d have most expected to be seriously hurt. So I’m glad I was too out of it to answer the phone. Yet another of God’s small mercies.

But definitely a very strange day.