Family Time

I smiled as I pulled up to my parents house. Cars filled the driveway and lined the road and that meant .... My nephews, sister and children were all there ahead of me. I unloaded my suitcases and gifts and headed into the house. And there I was met with chaos. "We need you in the kitchen!", greeted me as I heard exclamations of relief that I was there.

I quickly realized that my nephew had just cut the tip of his finger off. I grabbed s wad of paper towels in one hand as I grabbed my nephews hand with the other. As I applied pressure, I yelled over my shoulder to my son to get my first aid kit out of my car.

Over the next 30 minutes I continued to apply pressure as I worked to slow the bleeding down. Of course my family being what it is, I also dealt with the treatment comments ..."rub some dirt on it .... Tell him to walk it off". As I continued to work on his finger I called for my son to look for the finger tip so I could see how much was cut off. He finally found the finger tip in the slicer my nephew had been using on potatoes. And that is when my big tough son began gagging and choking. My son who has gutted hundreds of deer was struggling to actually pick up the finger tip. Being a loving concerned mother, I told him to eithe pick it up or find someone who could. As he carefully brought me the finger tip, cradled in gauze, I saw with relief that it was not as big as I feared and continued to work.

Finally I was ready to apply a pressure bandage  and send him off to the hospital for treatment. Of course the hardest part of that was convincing him to go. But we actually got him out the door and I looked with disbelief around me. It looked like we had been slaughtering pigs in there. My incredible little sister began cleaning it up ad I began to scrub the blood off me.

I took a deep breath and looked with thankfulness at my family. Everyone worked together in an emergency and it renewed my thankfulness for all of them. I think that it is times like this that really test what it means to be a family. I think we came through in flying colors.

My family is loving and strong. We meet life and heartache and keep on going. I am glad for the gift of family and glad for the generations of strength that has brought us here, a heritage of overcoming and meeting whatever challenge we face.

Yes, I am thankful .... Now I need to replenish my first  aid kit. I seemed to have mostly emptied it of supplies. Yep I love family time!

Just Connie