One year Later

Hello All—

Well, as of yesterday, we have made it through the first year since Kari’s accident.  It went by without much difficulty or difference from our normal Monday.  I think that after going through the accident, living through the accident is a piece of cake.  When I picked Kari up from church yesterday (she does counseling for women on Mondays) I was talking to pastor Rick about the accident and trying to explain how I felt about it now.  It’s funny, but even going through the whole thing, I, like so many others have told me, cannot even imagine how horrible it was.  I try to remember the impact of the car hitting the ditch and then hitting the ground, the feeling of not being able to breath at first, being trapped under the car watching Kari struggle to breathe, and wondering when help would arrive.  Kari told me last night that if they had taken even another minute to get her out she doesn’t think she would’ve made it.  It was chaos, but in slow motion too.  As much as I try to remember exactly how it felt though, I can’t.  I can remember the events exactly, just not all of the feelings.  At the very least it takes a lot of concentration to try to remember—that’s probably a good thing, but as much as we think about what happened, it can be a little unsettling to be detached from your own memory.  When we think of it now, we both describe it as like being in a bad movie, and that it seems like it was us in a different life—or something like that.  Anyways, yesterday was sort of a milestone, and I am so proud of Kari for making it through the first year.  Even though I can’t believe that its already been a whole year, my memories of the times before the accident seem like forever ago.  An even bigger deal though is our 4th anniversary that will be on Thursday (20th).  Its hard to believe that we’ve been only married this short time (in a good way!) because its seems like we’ve always just been together (we started dating 9 years ago).  

                              Aaron.

P.S.  We will be coming to Chicagoland over Labor Day weekend for a wedding and are planning a big party so we can see everybody on Sunday or Monday—check back for details.