Thank you.

(before I write my original post of the day, I wanted to address my below post. When I signed on to write a thank you to the various family and friends that have contacted me over the last couple of days, the last thing that I expected to find was a large, full color and animated ad for condoms. If I ever see that again, the ads will be removed. NOT OKAY AT ALL.)

Anyway.....
I wanted to send a quick thank you to all of the family and friends who have emailed/texted/called/messaged me about the accident and Jen. What I have been experiencing for the last couple of days in nothing short of an emotional roller coaster. Friday night, I had so much....something....energy? adrenaline? shock?....that I stayed up until 1:00am. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat and I just walked around in circles. Around and around and around my house. I didn't think that Jen was going to die. I thought she would have some serious injuries, but I thought that she would LIVE. I went to sleep and dreamt about her, except that there were different people I knew lying in the road, not Jen. Saturday I pulled up the newspaper article, read the comments and commented myself. Our newspaper never did a follow up story, so I was depending on the comments for an update....and then I got it. One of Jen's uncles went on and thanked me for being with Jen in her last moments. I was shocked. I bawled my eyes out, threw up and cried some more. I didn't understand. She was wearing a helmet. She shouldn't have died. In the days that followed, I began receiving emails from friends and relatives of Jen. Each would include a thank you for being with her, a note about how shocking this all was and a story about Jen. She just got back from Japan. She lost a sister to Leukemia and her dad recently died from cancer. She was a vegetarian. Each story would rip open the wound again, and I would picture her laying in the road. Her eyes - the only thing that I saw of her face since her helmet covered the rest. One family member sent me a picture and I recognized her immediately. Its funny, Friday night I went home imagining taking my dogs to the vet for their check up and running into her. I would tell her who I was and give her a hug, just happy to know that she was safe and sound. But she's not.

Life is a precious and fragile thing. It can be taken from you or you can be taken from it, in an instance. This has been engraved into my every thought every hour, minute and second. As much as my family and friends have been there to listen to me recount every minute, every email, every dream, my husband has been there holding me while I do so. This man that I married is the most amazing person that I know. Saturday, as I sat bawling on the bathroom floor he brought me water. He hugged me, brought me tissues and was in disbelief as well. Then suddenly, it hit me that life was precious. I needed to be thankful. I was half watching the Nanny and half spacing out when there was the funniest scene on the Nanny in the whole world. It was right before Mr. Schefield and Fran hook up, and there is all of the sexual tension and they play ping pong - and all of the sudden they are moaning and groaning and thrusting against the ball and the table and Frank and I are just sitting there, in awe that this is actually happening. And then the ball hits Fran in the chest and she collapses out of breath and sweating. And Frank and I are all "WHAAAAA? THE NANNY??? WHO KNEW!" and that helped to get me laughing. And for the rest of the night we would just look at each other, laugh and go "THE NANNY?? REALLY???" because it was just that funny. Then we played baseball in the house, because we could, and it was the most fun I've had in a long time. I cried myself to sleep that night, with Frank holding me tight, and dreamt of Jen lying in the road, of her eyes, and how scared she was.

I'm trying to shake it. I'm trying my best and although I cry off and on when I read an email or tell the story again, I'm getting there. Sometimes I feel a little silly that I'm crying over someone I knew for only a couple of minutes....but in the couple of minutes that I knew Jen, and the stories that I hear about her now, I feel for her. I feel for this family, and I feel for anyone that is going through the heartache of her death. I wasn't going to post anymore about Jen or the accident, but then I realized that this is MY BLOG. I can write about what I want....and while I am going to post later about our awesome trip on Sunday and my plans on continuing to make the most of my life (and my family's), I need to get this out. The last couple days have changed my outlook on life tremendously, and that will be reflected in this blog. It is now reflective of everything that I do and everything that I am. My next post will be a happy one, I promise. Until then, THANK YOU to everyone that has been there for me.

-maggie