2000-06-05
Dear Diary:

In June of 1981 Paul and I were given far more luck than we ever deserved. It happened right where the porch we're renovating stands now.

Only back then there wasn't a porch, there was a big hole in front of our house where we were preparing for the porch. To understand what happened, you have to picture this ...

The backhoe had come and scraped a big ditch down across the front of our log home, about 8 feet and some change deep and about three feet across. In the bottom of the hole Paul had poured what is called a foundation footing, a thick, wide cement base which would support the foundation wall under the porch.

You have to let that cement dry and harden before you pour the wall on top of it, and to join the footing to the future cement wall, you leave wicked bits of steel called re-bar sticking up out of the footing several feet. Just to the right and parallel to the footing, Paul had put 18 inches of gravel and on it was a flexible plastic drainage pipe that would take water away from our foundation.

In other words, for five days or so to get into our house you had to walk over a very deep hole with steel rods sticking up in the air and lots of cement in the bottom.

We had a ramp over the hole made from a piece of heavy duty plywood which was the standard four feet across and eight feet long which is plenty big for an adult. But my daughter was not an adult, she was cruising up to her third birthday.

Jess down at her grandmothers about the time of her fall. She was going through that "terrible two" stage where "no" was the major word in her vocabulary and she wanted to prove her independence.

Jess had been read the riot act, no crossing the ramp without holding a grown-up's hand. We thought we had the situation covered, that we were watching her like hawks, but any parent will tell you that it only takes a split second ...

She and Paul were heading out the door for his aikido class when she slipped away from him, started running down the ramp by herself.

She was motoring full tilt, stumbled, and there she was teetering on the edge of the plywood. I was heading back into the house from the yard. At the moment when I should have lunged for her, my knees gave way in sheer terror at what was about to happen.

Then she was gone.

There was the terrible sound of a tiny body hitting the ground.

Then there was silence, not a sound from the bottom of that trench.

It felt as if all the air had been sucked out of my lungs and that heavy weights had been set on my arms and legs. In my head I was playing a grisly slide show of what lay at the bottom of that hole. It was Paul who had to look, I couldn't move.

Paul could not believe it. There was Jess, and somehow she had fallen on her back in such a way that she was parallel to the footing. She had missed the cement, missed the re-bar, and hit the flexible drainage pipe which gave way under her and cushioned her fall some.

The shock of the fall had left her silent, perhaps even knocked the air out of her lungs, but she was perfectly fine and when she saw Paul she started screaming. The weird thing was that she wasn't even bruised, but if she had fallen another six inches or so to the left, then she would have been one of those sad stories you read in the newspaper.

I still occasionally think about that as I walk through the porch. Climbing up the left side of the door way which connects our porch to our home are a series of lines with handwritten dates. They mark the stages of our daughter's growth.

One day we were given far more luck than we ever deserved, and those lines did not end at June, 1981.

But they could have.

--Marn

Old Drivel - New Drivel


Subscribe with Bloglines


Want to delve into my sordid past?
She's mellllllllllllllting - Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012 - Back off, Buble - Monday, Dec. 19, 2011 - Dispersed - Monday, Nov. 28, 2011 - Nothing comes for free - Monday, Nov. 21, 2011 - None of her business - Friday, Nov. 04, 2011 -


.:Cast:. .:Diaryland Notes:. .:Comments (0 so far):. .:E-mail:.
.:Adventures In Oz:.
.:12% Beer:. .:Links:. .:Host:. .:Archives:.

Cavort, cavort, my kingdom for a cavort Globe of Blogs 12 Per Cent Beer my partners in crime


A button for random, senseless, drive-by linkings:
Blogroll Me!


< ? blogs by women # >
Bloggers over forty + ?
<< | BlogCanada | >>
[ << ? Verbosity # >> ]
<< x Blog x Philes x >>


This template is a riff on a design by the truly talented Quinn. Because I'm a html 'tard, I got alot of pity coding to modify it from Ms. Kittay, a woman who can make html roll over, beg, and bring her her slippers. The logo goodness comes from the God of Graphics, the Fuhrer of Fonts, the one, the only El Presidente. I smooch you all. The background image is part of a painting called Higher Calling by Carter Goodrich which graced the cover of the Aug. 3, 1998 issue of The New Yorker Magazine.

Kids, don't try viewing this at home without Netscape 6 or IE 4.5+, a screen resolution of 800 X 600 and the font Mead Bold firmly ensconced on your hard drive.

�2000, 2001, 2002 Marn. This is me, dagnabbit. You be you.