Don't go chasing butterflies...

from Cat:

Mom took a nasty spill on Wednesday. She and her wheelchair went off of a curb and landed hard on the pavement. 7 stitches, 1 missing tooth, 3 broken teeth, 1 broken hand, and some hurt feelings later, she is home and doing as well as can be expected.

I was working when dad called to tell me that, while everyone was ok, he was on his way to the ER to meet mom and the ambulance because she had fallen at Lowe's. He told me that he had been in the store buying what has now become the most expensive basil plant ever. He turned around and mom wasn't there. She likes to pace in her wheelchair and she also likes to go fast. She has been known to pull a Houdini before so dad set off to find her. He told me that he had to look a few different places before finally going around a back corner and he saw her, and Amigo (the wheelchair), down on the pavement. Thanks to the help of some awesome Lowe's employees and Wake County EMS, he was able to get her and the chair up, get her into the ambulance and to the hospital where the staff there stitched her up and took great care of us all.

When I got to the hospital, mom gave me a funny look and said, "Did daddy tell you what I was doing?" I said that I thought she was trying to get around a display, over shot it, and her wheel slipped off the curb. She got this sheepish look on her face and shook her head. Then she looked at me with a smirk and said... "I was chasing a butterfly."

Say what??

Yep, she saw a butterfly and wanted to see what kind it was so she was following it when she ran off the curb. Then she told us that she didn't even know there was a curb there! Daddy said, "The big yellow stripe painted on the ground didn't give you a clue?" Mom kind of giggled and said, "I wasn't looking at the ground, I was looking up at the butterfly!"

Now, I tell you all of that so I can tell you this... after getting her home, washing her hair in the sink, and fixing her some soup, daddy put the whole day into amazing perspective. He said,

"You know what? At least you were out there chasing butterflies."

That statement struck me right in my heart. Yes, at least she was out there chasing butterflies. At least she was out there chasing after something that makes her smile.

ALS is a horrible disease. It can easily become as emotionally and psychologically debilitating as it is physically. My momma isn't going down like that. She has no control over what ALS does to her body but she is not letting it beat her spirit. She's out there looking up. And consistently beside her in that fight is my daddy - constantly supporting her, dancing with her, encouraging her, making her laugh, loving her, and taking care of her.

So, my blog title is a bit misleading because I mean the exact opposite. Go chase those butterflies. Find something that makes you happy or that brings joy to your life and you do it. And if you happen to fall off of a curb in the process, I pray that you have someone beside you who will feed you tomato soup while singing, "Good 'Fang', Good 'Fang'" to you... because that is life. That is living and that is loving.

and this is Fang...

oh man, she's gonna kill me! :)