When life strikes. Hard.

This is how the world stops spinning.

Walk into a room and see your child on a ventilator.

Blood caked across his face and hands.

His left eye bruised and swollen shut.

A nearly 10-inch long, crescent-shaped line of staples on the left side of his head - where surgeons performed emergency surgery to remove a piece of his skull to relieve pressure from a massive brain bleed.

A nurse saying that he’d been hit by a car while riding his bicycle on a warm spring evening. Then going on to explain that while in the emergency room he showed signs of severe trauma - slurring his words, lethargy, loss of coherence, and “posturing” - which I learned in the several-minute-long walk from the Emergency Room to the Surgical Intensive Care Unit - is among the most concerning displays of brain trauma.

This is what Mitch’s family walked into around 8:30 p.m. or so on Saturday night.

And in that moment, nothing else in the world matters. Not the plans you had, not the bills you owe, not the big things you thought you’d do, not the trips you had scheduled.

Nothing. But this moment. And the next. And the one after that.

I will save the full story for a later time. There is much to learn about exactly what happened - and much to tell about all that happened between Saturday and today.

But I will say a few things here.

Nurses - They provide more than care in these situations. They provide an appropriate amount of levity. And hope. Especially the ones that don’t mince words and say things straight - all with an air of optimism. Because while you are thinking the worst, they’ve seen the incredible obstacles people can overcome. And they know what it takes to get them out of the ICU and on the road to home.

Friends - I’ve always seen friends as voluntary family. They don’t have to like you, and they don’t have to put up with you, yet for some reason they do. And the friends who show up and reach out - who offer to do whatever they can to help in the worst of times - are invaluable. On Sunday night, when things were still bleak and bordering on hopeless, they were there. Talking about all the ways we loved Mitch, and laughing at the funny stories we’d independently experienced with him - which collectively illustrated the reason we all were gathered together in a hospital waiting room hoping for the best. Many others offered to pick up the slack of ordinary life - and they did! And that allowed us to focus on what was in front of us.

Prayer - I don’t know that I’ve ever fully experienced what prayer really is. I know what it’s supposed to be, and what it’s supposed to mean. But I know what it felt like, here, in this instance. And it felt like a whole lot of people throwing all of their thoughts and hopes and hearts behind a single goal - that Mitch would be OK. I don’t know if I’ve ever really felt that before, but I felt it here. I knew there were people all over praying for him, praying for us, and we could feel it. We talked about how we could feel it. As the days went on, it felt like a collective wish for good. It was reassuring and it was comforting, and I’ll never forget all the people who put their souls into asking and praying for Mitch to be well.

After five days, Mitch got to go home. He’s groggy. Bruised. Sore. And he needs help for a while. There will be a lot of doctor’s appointments. But he’s walking and talking. He’s playing music. He’s got his sense of humor. And he is a long way from where he was five days ago, when we all wondered what the future would hold.

Both of my children have endured incredible hardships this year. It has been beyond painful to see them suffer, and to feel so helpless.

There is more to tell and say. Someday.

But to everyone one of you who reached out, who took on a task that lightened our load, who spent a moment of your day asking how things were going, who said you were praying for us, and for Mitch, thank you. I don’t know that you’ll ever really know how much all that meant to us.

Thanks to you, Providence, some luck, and a healthy amount of will and determination, it seems like the world can start spinning again.

With love and gratitude,

P.S. One of the people who really stepped up was my friend Jackson Swearer, who didn’t hesitate to take over That Podcast in Hutch for me. He’ll be the host this week and next. His guest this week is David Sotelo, who has a remarkable story about his immigration to the United States at the age of 12, to his current role as the Human Relations officer for the City of Hutchinson. I’m a bit jealous, because David was on my list of people to interview. But I’m grateful to Jackson for picking up the slack for me during all of this - and I’m looking forward to hearing his conversation with David.

To listen to Jackson’s conversation with David, subscribe to That Podcast in Hutch at Salt City Sound or on your favorite podcast streaming service.

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