Monday, July 23, 2007

Where is Home?

This past Saturday, my heart came to a complete stop for a few seconds. I was nursing Elyse at a friend's home whilst Jon was helping said friends move their stuff upstairs. What happened next, happened in complete slow motion - you know, when you're witnessing an event, and things are already in motion and it's completely too late to stop it. Started with a loud crack, yelling and then a big piece of grey falling through the ceiling from the attic above, and then followed by lots of fluff and then ...CRASH!!!!

I woke up from my slo-mo daze when I realized it was my husband lying there on the ground, groaning. With baby still latched on to me, I sprinted over to him completely frantic and to be honest, I don't quite remember what I said or did. All I recall was someone gently telling me to hand the baby over and then I was on the ground next to Jon, sobbing away. I cried even harder when he started laughing and cracking jokes because I was convinced he had suffered a concussion. I couldn't stop shaking for a the longest time whilst we were making sure he wasn't impaled on anything or was sporting any new attachments to his body. The owner of the home had called 911 and soon enough the entire army of emergency vehicles were there to assess the situation. They convinced Jon to let them take him to the hospital, and I got to ride along in the ambulance. I'd never been in one, and would have been very happy to make it through my entire life without being in one.

The ER visit was a quick one, to our surprise. We were there for a total of less than 4 hours. The staff were attentive and we were very relieved that Jon had only suffered one broken bone on his foot, along with some bruises and a pretty scraped up left arm. These injuries could have been so much worse, considering that there were loose power tools lying around and a huge power saw that Jon had just moved moments before the floor gave way from under him.

All I could think of during those hours were if anything happened to him, I would be all alone with the baby. Everything that's happened this past year, being pregnant, having the baby without my family around, my mom getting ill, and then this accident, have strengthened my resolve to go home for good. Things haven't worked out for us over the time period we've been here. And the biggest sacrifice is being so far away from our families and friends back home. Don't get me wrong, I love my friends who are here, but Jon and I have always felt like outsiders, even though our friends have welcomed us with open arms. It isn't the same to not have your family close by. The reality of being half a world away from my family hits me harder everyday that passes.

However, will we be sacrificing opportunities that are available here for the comforts of home? I guess the answer will come to us soon, I hope.