What a Weekend!

Oh my oh my oh my oh my.  A weekend of emotional highs and lows.

Dunkin’ Donuts opened up an outlet 2.8 miles from my house!  What joy!  Heretofore forced to travel 17 miles round trip to secure my sweet sweet DD fix, I very often choked down Starbucks coffee. 

I am NOT a fan.

But I AM a fan of Dunkin Donuts and am thrilled someone FINALLY opened one up nearby!  HIGH!

I started my weekend at 3am Saturday morning.  I was scheduled to spend an hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament.  Last month, not enough people signed up and Father was called and sat with the Blessed Sacrament between 1am and 4am.  So this month, as we got closer to First Friday and All Night Adoration, the President of my Legion of Mary presidium asked us all to sign up for an hour.  I picked 3am.  I always enjoy it when I go, I get so much out of it.  So much peace.  Hard to explain to anyone who isn’t Catholic; sometimes just as difficult to explain to Catholics.

So I’ll just say go.  Catholic or not.  Go.  Sit.  You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to.  Just sit. 

Anyway, though I woke up and got there late, I arrived and I spent an hour.  I said some Divine Mercy prayers; appropriate to the 3:00 o’clock hour and came away feeling really peaceful and good.  I enjoy it so much I always come away saying I’m going to go next time - then I rarely do.  But when I got home, it was so quiet, no cars yet on the road in the Land of Traffic, and all I could hear were the early birds starting to sing. 

I went back to bed.  HIGH!

At 7:30 am, I called my son; on his way to upstate New York his vacation.  He was driving up from South Carolina and I figured he’d be close to his destination. 

“Hey, buddy, how’s it going?”

“I totaled my car.”

Pause.

“When?”

“6:30am”  It’s the kind of low a parent doesn’t ever want to have; it’s always in the back of our mind, we always pray we don’t get that phone call or that knock on the door.  Low. 

Apparently, a deer ran out in front of him, and he swerved to avoid hitting it.  When he turned to come back, he overcorrected and went off the road into something of a ravine, but at that point he was airborne, hit a tree about 5 feet off the ground and totaled his car. 

That detached account does not relay the panic and anxiety that I felt while he was telling me this, and I kept hoping he was just going to tell me he was joking and that he was nearly there.  He was not joking.  But he was on the phone.  He was alive.  Complaints about totaling his car were like music to me; the alternative was unthinkable.  High and low all jumbled up.

He had already dealt with the police, filed the report, called his insurance company – they were immediately supportive.  Miraculously, he sustained no injuries at all and his brother was already on the way to pick him up.  I learned later that the tow truck driver told my son he should think about going to church on Sunday.  He was lucky he walked away. 

Highs and lows.  Highs and lows.