Cleaning up!

The wedding is over.

The thank yous are written. (Thank goodness)

The weather is getting colder.

What is there left to do?

Clean up, of course! I am now on the way to a clean home. It's a long way off but I'm going to get there. I have so many closets stuffed with, well, stuff. And the wedding room needs to be retired. Instead the dirty dress is sitting on the chair, the boxes of left over wedding paper and pictures stacked up. Retire already!

There is so much more time now to do things yet all I want to do is sit. October has been a mentally draining month. With all of the death and tragic accidents occurring around us I am ready for a new month, a new trend of life altering events.

So that brings me to babies. Yes - having babies. Todd and I are not necessarily wanting a baby right at this moment but we aren't exactly trying not to have one. We want a family and we would ideally like to have a child after Todd graduates. Well Todd plans on graduating in 10-11 months. Whoa! That hit me today like a ton of bricks. It hit me while I was planning on what dress I was going to wear for my coworkers wedding at the end if April and then again as I was thinking of how poor my diet is and how much I should be taking a vitamin. So I went to the store and I bought prenatal vitamins. What?!?

Now I am a little freaked out but I can't imagine being so irresponsible that I totally neglect my body and then get pregnant. I am a pediatrician for goodness sake! So I've decided that I should start caring...in case of emergency. They say you should start taking vitamins a few months before you think you will get pregnant. And that time has come. So I'm cleaning up my house and my body!

On to better things...

One night

This past weekend we celebrated another wedding between our friends Jeff and Jenn. We set them up a year ago and they tied the knot 5 weeks after us. I am so happy for them. Their wedding night was a nice celebration with a live band and good friends and family. At the end of the night began a series of events I may never forget, but I hope the bride never remembers. 

I am going to skip those details, however, as everything turned out ok. Instead I am going to move on to something that happened while we were celebrating in another part of the city. It was our friend Seth's 30th surprise birthday party. We couldn't attend because of the wedding but we knew a lot of our friends were gathering right around the corner from our house to celebrate this amazing man. 

Around 9:15pm that night people began leaving Seth's celebration. His best friend Ryan, Ryan's wife and their 22month old headed out behind Seth's mom and grandma.  A few minutes later Seth received a call from his mom that there was an accident that happened right behind them and they thought it was his friend's family in the car. Seth and Mike (another friend) immediately ran down to the corner to find what I hope someday they will be able to forget. Ryan was being resuscitated, his wife Erin was being pulled from the car. Seth and Mike stepped in to help. Ambulances arrived - 3 of them. One took Erin to University quickly. Another took Summer (their child) to Childrens. And the third drove off slowly with Ryan inside. Little did anybody know that would be the last time they saw Ryan. He passed away that night while his wife and little girl were rushed to the hospital. His wife would not find out the news to the next day when she got out of surgery for a subdural hematoma (head bleed). Summer, in the meantime, is being taken care of at Children's, the only people surrounding her were her parents' friends. How scared she must have been. She sustained great injuries to her upper spine and went to surgery yesterday. The doctor's have hope that she will do well after much recovery. We can only pray.

Our friends are some of the most caring people I will ever know. They have been there for the family every minute taking only a few hours to rest and stop home to clean up and take care of their own child. Seth and Mike have the images of the crash in their minds....Seth will never see his best friend again....life seems so precious for all of us. All we can do is pray.

Most people ask how did it happen? It wasn't a drunk driver as most people think. It was a 49 year old man who went into a diabetic coma behind the wheel. He ran the red light and t-boned them on the driver's side. Ryan was driving. The man suffered little injury and is ok.

The thoughts are now to their future. Erin is a pediatrician (we went to Xavier and UC for schooling, she 2 years behind me). She was supposed to take her boards this month. Her daughter was a daddy's girl. Ryan's facebook profile shows just how much she loved him and he her. What happens when they head back home to the Columbus area and they walk into their home to see Ryan's stuff lying around, his dirty laundry ready to be washed, his pillows with his scent still on them? My heart breaks and tears fall whenever I think of this. For Erin, Summer, Ryan's family, Seth and his wife Sally, Mike and his wife Sara my thoughts and prayers are with you. I cannot imagine what you are going through. I only wish you strength, hope, and peace.

I can only pray.