The night started out with a feeling of great excitement. I don’t know if it was the electricity in the air from the approaching storm or if it was from the energy I felt at having supper out with the friends I had newly made in the cul-de-sac to which we had just moved. It was a great community. We were getting to know and love our neighborhood, which was full of children the same ages as ours, Catherine, three, and Samuel, one. Being connected to our new community was a blessing I hadn’t expected, and so were the events that quickly followed.

The ladies in the area asked me to join them to go out for supper to plan their annual neighborhood BBQ. As we drove off, we waved to the families, ignoring the cries begging us to stay that followed…mostly from our husbands. It turned into a night of laughing at the joys of motherhood and marriage, and of indulging in giant pieces of chocolate cheesecake.

When we were done, we laughed and shrieked, as we dashed through the early summer showers to our cars.

I dropped everyone off as we circled the cul-de-sac. I turned into my own driveway and noticed two people standing in the doorway of my house. I couldn’t see who they were because the night darkened their faces and the light of the entrance was bright behind them. As I approached them, I recognized that two other neighbors. I immediately thought to myself, “What a bunch of keeners! These ladies can’t wait to get the news about the BBQ plans!”

I shouted a friendly hello towards them and said I had missed them not being with us this evening.

A solemn homecoming

Their looks were solemn and they didn’t respond to my greetings. Instead, one of the women, Brenda, stopped me abruptly and said, “Patti, there’s been an accident.”
“An accident?” I thought. “Can’t be serious, I’ve only been gone for a few hours.”

Brenda had a panicked look on her face. She breathed in deeply and said, “It’s Catherine. She’s had a terrible fall and…well, we’re just not sure…”

“Brenda, what do you mean?” I asked as a million thoughts began to race through my mind as I thought about my precious three-year-old. “Tell me, what do you mean by ‘you’re just not sure’? What kind of fall?”

Brenda tried to answer but she seemed incoherent to me. I watched her talking but I couldn’t hear her clearly. Finally I heard her say something about David needing clothes.

I looked at her oddly. “Why?”

She slowly said, “Patti, it’s bad. There was a lot of blood. David took her to emergency.”

Journey to the hospital

I began to feel my chest hurt and my mind run out of control. I had to get to the hospital…NOW! I frantically went into my closet and stood staring at David’s clothes. I couldn’t focus. Brenda came alongside and offered to help. I then called one of my best friends to come and watch Sam for a while. My friend took charge and helped me work out some details for his care over the next two or three days. It seemed like an eternity before I could get everything organized.

Finally, I shakily got into my vehicle and began a panicked drive to the hospital. What had been a warm, joy -filled evening now seemed like a scene from a horror movie. It was very dark, the wind was blowing and the roads were wet and slippery.

I raced across the hospital parking lot to the emergency waiting room. As I entered, I was met immediately by a nurse who obviously had a mother’s heart; she smiled warmly and without saying a word, firmly took my arm and led me through the waiting room to David.

A fearful sight

He didn’t see me approach and it was heartbreaking to see him standing there alone in the hallway. He was soaked in blood and vomit. His face was gaunt and ashen white. As our eyes met I could see the horror and guilt he was suffering, the same that would plague him for weeks with horrific nightmares. He hugged and held me for a long moment then grabbed my hand and led me to Catherine’s room. He stopped me just outside the door and told me the emergency room doctor and neurologist were with her and he encouraged me to be strong. I was full of fear at that point. I still didn’t know what had happened but I did know I just needed to see her.

When I walked into the room, it was full of activity. There were nurses and doctors everywhere. I almost didn’t want to go in for fear I would get in the way.

Then I looked at the face of my Catherine and my heart cracked in two. She was completely disfigured and unrecognizable. There lay my perfect little girl, the very girl whom we had prayed to have through years of infertility. We had even given her the middle name Janai, the Hebrew translation, “God answers prayer.” The nurses saw me come in and many of them did their last procedures, then moved away so I could come in close to her.

David recounts the fall

Slowly and quietly, as we looked over Catherine and stroked her hair, David told me what happened.

Earlier that evening, the kids had been able to stay up later than usual. David was always good for that. They had wrestled, read books and cuddled while watching a little basketball. After putting Sam to bed, David and Catherine sat on the couch to watch the storm as it blew the leaves around the yard. The windows were open wide to allow a breeze to blow through to cool off the house. They looked out the window for a while then David got up from the couch to get her a drink before bed.

As he walked into the kitchen, he heard a strange sound behind him. A click. He turned his head quickly and, to his horror, saw Catherine had crawled up onto the back of the couch and had pressed on the screen.

In that moment that he looked towards her he could see she was falling through. He leapt for her – the tips of his fingers touched the tips of her heel – and she was gone.

Seconds later he heard the horrible sound of impact on the concrete sidewalk, 20 feet below.

He was sure she was dead.

He didn’t look out the window. He leapt to his feet, swallowed the bile that was in his throat, and ran for the phone. He left a garbled 911 message then raced downstairs to Catherine. As he rounded the side of the house, he could see she had pushed herself up and was trying to stand. He looked at her face and she was unrecognizable; blood was everywhere.

David scooped her up and sprinted for the front yard. Our neighbors, Graham and Brenda, were just arriving at home. David tried to yell but his screams were stuck in his dry throat. They saw him racing towards them with a severely injured child. Brenda stayed with Sam and Graham rushed them to the hospital. All the way there, David kept talking to Catherine. She struggled to say, “Daddy, I’m sorry, I pushed on the window.”

He kissed her and held her as tightly as possible, as though he was holding her entire head together. The team of nurses and doctors were waiting for them at the door of the emergency room.

The extent of Catherine’s injuries

As we sat beside her bed, the doctors explained to me that she had taken the force of the fall on her forehead. She had three fractures in her skull. Two of them were through her orbital bone which circles the eye, and a third release fracture was at the base of the back part of her skull. The extreme impact above the eye had pushed the eye down about an inch and a half, and she had scraped off most of the skin from one side of her face.

She was a mess but the emergency room doctor was optimistic, “I think she’s going to make it,” he said. Catherine had been resting for a moment while I was being filled in, but she soon opened her eyes and saw David and I standing with her. She began to cry and stretched her tiny little arms up to us for comfort. We cradled her and soothed her until she settled down again.

The porters came at that moment to take her for a CT scan. We weren’t allowed to go with her. David stepped out to take some of the calls that were coming in, and I watched him go, then shut the door silently behind him.

Prayers and tears through the night

What was happening? One minute I was full of so much joy. The next, I was staring at my baby, wondering if she would live to see the next morning. The worst part was there was nothing I could do. My normal reaction would be to freak out. I wanted to completely let go and scream. Instead, I knelt down on the cold floor, put my head on the lonely chair in the room and put my ice-cold hands over my face.

Then I began to sob. “Why God? I don’t understand. She’s so helpless and so am I. I don’t know what to do but help me to be the mom she needs me to be and the wife that David needs me to be.”

I was a relatively new Christian, young in my faith, but in that moment, I reached out to pray with my heart not my words. I was completely at His mercy. Nothing I could do or say would change His will. My tears flowed up to Him. There was no stopping them, like a river they poured out to God.

Soon, I felt a warmth wash through me. The only thing I could think of was, “I will never leave or forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5) It came over me and produced such calmness. The tears continued to flow, but I had peace. I didn’t feel hysterical. I didn’t feel on the edge. I felt peace knowing that all of us were not alone. It was the first time I had understood Psalm 23: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you my Lord are with me.”

When doctors felt her life was out of immediate danger, eight hours later, she was transferred to the ICU. She wasn’t allowed any pain medication so the nurses and doctors could test her neurological vital signs that would help assess her brain functioning and her body’s state of coping with the head injury. They did this every hour and every hour we helped to soothe her back to a state of rest.

She painfully managed to make it through the night. Her ICU nurse said, “She’s a fighter.” I felt comforted by that.

I still looked helplessly at her each time she cried and curled up in David’s or my arms. I could see David’s body shake each time he held her. I felt my heart warm as he sang hymns softly in her ear. We prayed with her and reminded her that Jesus was with us and that none of us were scared. It was true. I wasn’t scared. I was just thrilled that she had survived and knew we would be able to handle anything else. I knew well the field of rehabilitation services for people with disabilities, because it was my field of occupation.

Morning came and with it an entourage of doctors. There were at least seven of them assessing Catherine. She had been poked, prodded, and examined by them all.

What would Catherine see?

The neurologist was encouraged by what he was seeing but cautioned us it was still early, there still was a real concern about her eyesight.

Catherine’s ophthalmologist was a youthful man who wore animated shoes and a wild tie. He looked at her as she was nestled into her dad. I anguished for Catherine because both of her black eyes were completely swollen shut and I knew the examination would be painful. The ophthalmologist sat beside her on the bed and carefully and softly touched her eyes. He talked about all the things a three-year-old would know like Barney the dinosaur and other cartoon characters.

Finally, he held a popsicle stick up in front of her and gently pried open her eyes.

He asked her, “Catherine, who do you see on the end of this popsicle stick?”

She said nothing for what seemed like an awfully long time, then in a voice barely above a whisper we heard her reply, “That’s … Mickey Mouse.”

It was a turning point in her recovery. I’ll never forget those words or the reaction of the nurses and doctors, who were there. Many of them started to cry right along with us.

Catherine was later transferred up to the regular children’s ward. Her speech and movements began to come back. She started to develop an appetite. She was thrilled that people were sending her gifts and it wasn’t even her birthday or Christmas. She was so excited to see visitors like her Grammy and her Uncle Greg.

“Small, but mighty”

Through the next day or two, the specialists kept coming to assess her. She was improving at a miraculous rate. The major problem now was that it appeared she was going to face multiple reconstructive surgeries. Each day she dramatically improved and showed great strength in her recovery and in her spirit.

I had cried a river of tears from the sadness and the stress of the accident. Just the sight of her was enough to know that she was in deep pain but she never complained. I watched her strength and was encouraged by it. The pediatrician, who was working with Catherine, said she was “small but mighty.”

I was learning inside that no matter what would happen, she would be fine. I had come to accept God’s will in her life and had handed it over to Him knowing that He would take care of her even if she had brain damage or a life of disfigurement.

My biggest lesson came on the third day. With her hands completely bandaged, she was trying to use the tips of her fingers to pull her eye open to watch cartoons.

I hadn’t seen any visitors for almost 12 hours. It had been a bit of a relief and I was finding strength in tending to Catherine. When our pastor came in, I could feel the tears come back again. My eyes were sore, but the tears came out anyway. We prayed for Catherine.

Faith of a child

When we were done, she tried to look at me, holding up her two skinny, little, bandaged arms, and then said, “Mommy, it’s OK, Jesus is here and He’s making me better.”

The faith of my small child became infectious to me. She understood the clear and simple message of a Savior, that no matter where I am or what I face, Jesus would never leave me. He would stay close and help me face the path ahead. Catherine’s tiny sentence ended up having a huge impact on my faith in Christ.

After she was discharged, we continued to go back for assessments each week with the pediatrician, the ophthalmologist, the neurologist and the plastic surgeon. Each week they would send us home and we would wait to be reassessed. Finally after a year or more of assessment all our visits ended.

Catherine today

To this day, Catherine never had one operation. To look at her, you wouldn’t know of that terrible fall. She is a beautiful, highly intelligent, athletic, girl in her class. People are often surprised at her story. She has a growing testimony in her classroom. She never wastes a chance to talk about God or what He has done in her life with kids and adults around her. She has challenged me to do the same.

Through it all, I can look back and see that God answered many of our prayers through Catherine’s accident. Although there was a time when I never thought I would make it through this ordeal, I am grateful to God for it because it laid a foundation of faith and understanding in Jesus that I would need to rely on for the years to follow.

Not all of our prayers have been answered in the way we would expect. Since Catherine’s accident, I experienced many tragedies and deaths of people I dearly loved. Through each situation I have faced, I have never forgotten that Jesus is in my life, living in my heart and nothing will separate me until I see Him face to face. “…and surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28: 20).

He will give you peace through your time of need, struggle, and despair, if you place your trust in Him.

God wants to be our leverage in living, empowering us to feel better about ourselves, more excited about our future, more grateful for those we love and more enthusiastic about our faith.

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, God has given you His Holy Spirit to help you live life according to His perfect plan. Why not pray this simple prayer and by faith invite Him to fill you with His Spirit:

Dear Father, I need you. I acknowledge that I have sinned against you by directing my own life. I thank you that You have forgiven my sins through Christ’s death on the cross for me. I now invite Christ to again take His place on the throne of my life. Fill me with the Holy Spirit as You commanded me to be filled, and as You promised in Your Word that You would do if I asked in faith. I pray this in the name of Jesus. As an expression of my faith, I thank You for directing my life and for filling me with the Holy Spirit. Amen.