Fair warning, this is going to be a rambling post....I don't even know what to title it.
I didn't send out a Christmas letter for 2019 because any time I would try to sit down and think over the year my eyes would just glaze over and I couldn't think of a thing to write. So much to take in. So much to process. So much drama. So many emotions. SO MUCH STRESS.....
I'm going to try to get this typed out because I think it will help me process it. It may take me a few times trying, but here goes.....
We did have some good times in 2019 as well.....we got to go to the beach with my family in September. Always such a relaxing time to get away!
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| All the Hale cousins. 15 of them. :) |
The best part of the year of course was August 1st, Franklin Robert joined out little family! His birth was incredibly special because RoseMarie, the midwife that delivered me was in town and was there to assist my midwife, Rene'e and got to catch Franklin! My mother, Hilary and of course Sam were all there as well.....seriously the best birth team ever!
Franklin is our little ray of sunshine in the middle of a crazy year. He seriously is the happiest baby and quite cute if I say so myself!
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| Franklin at just about an hour old |
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| Franklin at 7 months |
So the crazy.....
Besides the few big things that I'll get to in a moment, there were so many other things. Some little and some big, but all stressful.
Five ladies very close to me lost their babies to miscarriage.
A dear friend lost her mother to cancer.
Hurts from the past getting drug back out and spread around so very viciously.
Friendships ended. But Friendships were also started.
Making the decision to leave the church where Sam and I met way back in 1999 and have gone to ever since. Even though it needed to be done, it was way more emotional than I thought it would be.
Looking for a new church body to worship with. I think we've found where we are going to stay for a while, and we only had to visit three churches to find it! :)
Sam was looking at applying for a job with American Airlines in Tulsa so for about two months we were looking at putting the house on the market and moving up to OK. He had a interview scheduled for Dec 3rd, but ended up canceling it because of a reason I'll get into later.....
Sam and I started a business this year. Baling hay over the summer for people in the area. Building a small business is just stressful and I don't think there any other way around that. So Sam spent the summer cutting and baling hay with a few guys that worked for/with him. And the kiddos and I spent the summer frequenting our local John Deere and Hardware stores. Machinery likes to break down apparently.... ;) We also would bring lunch and supper out to the fields where they were working, and we would sit and watch and sometimes the kiddos got to take rides around the fields which of course they loved!
The week Franklin was born, every piece of machinery took turns breaking....that was a bit stressful.
I also had high blood pressure postpartum that would not come down so when Franklin was about three weeks old, my midwife sent me to a Dr. in McKinney and he gave me a prescription for high bp that I was on for a couple of months till it came down. Thankfully I was able to wean off of it with in about 2 months.
My cousin Sean married his Sweetheart Abigail two and a half weeks after Franklin was born. I was barely allowed to go, but I sat the whole time, left early, and my in-laws helped watched the kiddos. We took the opportunity of everyone being dressed up to snap a quick family picture :)
November 16th Sam and Cody were out on a hay field and the baler caught fire....that was a bit stressful! Thankfully they were able to save the tractor and the already baled bales, and the Lone Oak fire department was able to get there quickly and put the field out.
Most of our fire department family.....seriously some of the best people out there!
In case you didn't know, Sam is the Chief of The Campbell Volunteer Fire Department where we live. Three of my brothers are also on it. What does the wife of a Fire Chief look like? Sometimes instead of sleeping, there's a structure fire that needs put out. Sometimes instead of Eating supper as a family, the kiddos and I eat while Sam runs scene command on a wreck on the interstate. Sometimes, we're about to have the first quiet evening in weeks only for Sam to have to run a med call that turns into an attempted suicide with an all evening stand off with police involved. It's chaotic and crazy. We never know what our schedule is going to be. But then sometimes you're out in the community and someone comes up to you and tells you how your husband helped safe their life, or their child's life, their mother's, and the list goes on. It really is a gateway to reach into so many lives right here in our own neighborhood. Our own little way to make a difference. So yes, sometimes I wish it would be nice to not have the constant pull on mu husband's time, but we also have this wonderful, crazy, sometimes dysfunctional, but always there for you loving fire department family that I wouldn't trade for the world! We love the Community where God has put us, and I wouldn't trade it for a calm, scheduled life! Who wants that, right? ;)
See this truck? That was Sam's truck. He had it for 10 years. The truck that we went on dates with and that we drove away from our wedding in. And that's the last picture I have of it looking like that.....
November 26th at about 7:30p a call went out for a wreck on the 101 bridge. I didn't think much of it, because there are always wrecks on that bridge. About 20 min later my brother Daniel called asking if anyone had called me yet.....Sam had been in a rollover in his truck on the bridge. His vitals were good, but the were taking him into the hospital in Plano. They had just loaded him on the helicopter. Deborah could take the kids while I went to the hospital. Don't drive it yourself, get someone to drive you to Plano.
Y'all. Talk about a life-changing phone call.....
I could hardly think straight, but I called my dad and he said he would drive me and mommy could take the kiddos to Deb's. I started packing a bag while the tears flowed. I tried to get a grip to call Sam's family. Called Faith since she's the one that will predictably answer her phone. No Answer.... Shoot. That means she was on shift that night. In my heart I knew she was the paramedic on the wreck and started praying for her. Praying for her steadied my nerves. Called my mother in law and told them. My brother Andrew was actually there at their house and he took off for Plano and was the first one to see Samuel in the ER. Called Hillary and told her.
While in my dad's car on the way there, I made the mistake of looking at the local news Facebook page and saw that the other driver had been declared on scene and the passenger was also being care flighted. While my heart bleeds for the other family, I knew in that moment I could not think about the occupants of the other car. I needed to get to the hospital and focus on Sam.
Got to the ER and Andrew took me straight back to see him although he warned me that they had given him some pretty high powered pain meds. He was still in the neck brace. His face was bloody from a gash on his head. But he was alive and knew who I was. He had no memory of the wreck and kept asking what happened. They had just done x-rays on his back and his L2 (lower back) was fractured and would probable need surgery. Not long after I got there he went back for an MRI. He had a minor concussion and a badly sprained ankle.
Really it's a miracle he is alive, and for that to be the extent of his injuries.
At around midnight, they took us up to his room and settled him for the night and were looking at surgery the next day. The room they put him in was bigger than most and had a futon that Franklin and I could sleep on. God was truly looking out for us.
The outpouring of love a support from all our friends who showed up at the hospital that night and over the next few days was overwhelming.
There were so many good deeds done for us that I can't possibly name them all.....
My sweet sister-in-law Ruthie that brought me a bag of essentials...socks, underwear, chap stick, energy drinks, Advil, snack bars, etc.
Deb, Ruthie, Mommy, Amy and Hannah all helped take care of Emma, Corrie and James while we were at the hospital and would sent me pics of them periodically. Hannah and Peter also brought them up to the hospital a few times so we could see them. We ended up being in the hospital for 6 days.
Katherine that brought me chick-fil-a for breakfast, a toothbrush and toothpaste and Starbucks at least twice.
Ryan brought my chick-fil-a as well for lunch one day.
Esther brought me Chipotle one evening.
I'm not sure I know how many times Faith brought us coffee..... ;)
Hannah and Hilary went to my house and cleaned it because I had left it an absolute mess because the day of the wreck I had been cooking/baking for thanksgiving. And then they brought some clothes for Franklin and I.
Andrew went to Walmart and got me a few things as well....face-timed me so I could pick out some clothes. :)
Josh went to the wrecking yard to get all of Sam's tools out of his truck.
Steven set up a GoFundMe page and people were so incredibly generous.
I don't even know how many people took turns holding Franklin while we were up there....
So many of our first responder family and sweet friends either came or called to see how we were and pray with and for us.
Rene'e, my sweet midwife who I called freaking out a bit because with all the stress my milk supply was slowing down, and she brought me some herbal supplements and tea to help boost it.
And the all important phone call from the DPS officer to tell us that there was a witness and it was in the report that Sam was 100% not at fault for the wreck. Huge sigh of relief.
There was a whole crew that showed up to get Sam home the day he got released from the hospital.
We called in a 'lift assist' so the fire department could help get him up the steps into the house.
They showed up in force and lined the road spraying water over us as we drove up. Such a wonderful welcome home for their Chief! <3
I took this picture on the worst night while we were at the hospital because I wanted to remember it. My usually strong husband was clinging to my hand crying in pain. "For better or for worse" isn't just a phrase, it's a lifestyle. And over the next few days, weeks and months, while on the outside, it looked like definitely the 'for worse' part, there was also a 'for better' that wove it's way through and among the 'worse'. We grew closer and stronger because of it. God really can take what was meant for evil and redeem it into something good. Sam was off work for 12 weeks. the first month was hard. I'll admit that. We all got some sort of flu bug, my milk went down from the stress so Franklin was fussier than normal. And I was having to help Sam do every little thing. Even turning over in bed I had to help. And let's not talk about the bathroom, but let's just say he couldn't do anything for himself that first month. There were frustrating moments when it felt like all five of them needed me and I just wasn't getting a break. I tried to be strong for them, but I'm only human. There was one day I had a meltdown on the phone to my friend Hilary and she immediately set up baby sitting and took me out of the house and we got coffee and talked and went shopping. Bless her for that. I love my husband and my children, but those hours away helped so much! Looking back, I'm pretty sure I had some ppd as well. So many things going on in such a short time. And my hormones were still regulating after having Franklin. But I coped, and I had so many amazing friends that would check in on us and make sure I was doing ok and I was leaning more heavily on God than I ever had in my life. There were days that I was so tired I couldn't physically read my bible, but I would listen to my Casting Crowns station on Pandora and just let the music wash over me....
James and Zoe came and picked him up so he could ride in Campbell's Christmas parade a few weeks after we the wreck. He was in pain by the end of it, but it was so good to be out seeing people.
Our first big outing after the wreck was to our church's Christmas Eve service.
It got better though....after Sam had mostly recovered but couldn't go back to work yet, we were able to just chill as a family and just enjoy not really having to go anywhere or do anything. Sleeping in and eating in the living room watching movies was pretty much all we did! Disney+ launched at just the right time for us! :D The last few weeks we went on a few trips. One to the Wildlife Preserve in GlenRose and we spent a long weekend with Sam's sister Bekah and her family in St. Louis.
Fun with the cousins in St. Louis
About two months after the wreck someone backed into Sam's new truck while it was parked in the hospital parking lot and he was inside doing his physical therapy.....we didn't even have license plates on it yet.....thankfully the other people stayed and swapped insurance so we didn't have to pay out of pocket for that.
Sam is back at work now and I thought things would settle down, right? Nope, now we have this Corona virus thing going.....I'll be honest, I really hadn't paid much attention to it till all of a sudden there wasn't toilet paper at any of the stores. I don't pretend to know all the answers. I'm not walking around with a mask on, but we are taking some precautions. We are taking elderberry syrup. I put thieves essential oil on the kiddos and I if we have to go out. We did go to church last week, but we might be just watching the live stream in the next few weeks. We don't want to panic, but we want to take precautions. There is a fine line there that we are trying to walk while trusting that God is in control and we can trust Him.
This verse/phrase has been ringing in my ears since that phone call from Daniel. Through it all, through all the ups and down 2019 had in store for us, God was right there with us. It it so wonderful to have such a loving Lord that we can lean on and we can know for sure He will hold us through all the stress and crazy.
well two of us are looking at the camera.......
one of my favorite hymns
I'm going to go ahead and post this.
There is so much more I could say, but I think I've rambled on enough....
