This morning, I was awakened to my son Thomas frantically waking my husband Dennis so that Thomas could get his new insurance card and put it in his truck. I woke up and sensed that something was very wrong and started asking, "What's wrong? Is everything okay? Hey - what's wrong?" Dennis calmly answered that he was just giving Thomas his insurance card so he could drive. I thought perhaps I was just reading their faces wrong or something.

So, I'm getting out of the shower about 10 minutes later and Dennis says, "Um, Thomas got into a bad accident last night. A 2008 suburban rear-ended him and the lady's airbag went off and hurt her face badly. Thomas was okay, but he heard screaming and went to help the lady - she was covered in blood and wasn't coherent, so he helped her out of the suburban where she collapsed in the middle of the road. He rolled her to the side of the road - she was over 300 pounds, Thomas said - and he managed to call 911 and then was in shock. The woman was still screaming when the paramedics got there and they stayed with Thomas until he was okay. The police gave Thomas the number for the file and told him to call in 3 days to get the police report since the woman was in no condition to answer questions. The back of his little truck is very messed up."

I just stared at him and very calmly asked, "When did this happen?" He said, "At 9:00 last night." He said that he'd spoken to my youngest son Ben who had told him that I'd just gone to bed at 9, and then said that because he couldn't handle both Thomas and I falling to pieces, he'd elected not to tell me anything. I wanted to fly across the room and claw out his eyes. Thomas had needed someone to come and be with him and had called Dennis and Dennis told him he was working. Dennis said that he wanted Thomas to know that he could handle it on his own and that he would be okay. I did understand that there was some 'guy' something going on there, but to just not say anything to me was WRONG.

Alright, be honest, really and truly honest, would you have wanted your husband to tell you when it happened? Is there some 'man' thing I'm missing here? I didn't 'fall to pieces' when he told me. I was perfectly calm and rational and asked what I could do to help out today.

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One More Sunset
~My Story~