Accident

 

 

When I was not yet three years old, I had an accident on the farm, that though not necessarily life threatening, had quite an impact on me.  My mother had a new baby and it was in the middle of canning season.  My father and older siblings were in the middle of haying season.  That morning it was decided that I would spend the day in the hayfield with my dad and brothers and sisters in order to give my mother a bit of time to work with the fruit that needed to be bottled.  With two older brothers and two older sisters to entertain me by the haystack, everything should turn out ok, right?  Well, at some point I decided that I wanted to be on the top of the haystack with my Daddy rather than down below with my brother, so climbed up onto the fork of the derrick that was used to lift loads of the loose meadow hay to the top of the stack.  I don't really remember the accident, so we can only assume that I had figured out that riding the forklift would get me up on top of the haystack.  Unfortunately, as the my brother started leading the horse that pulled the cable that lifted the forklift of the derrick, I grabbed hold of the metal cable with my little two year old right hand.  The cable sliced into the flesh of my palm and 3rd and 4th fingers, severing the tendons of those fingers. 

So why was this accident that caused several successive surgeries and hospitalizations on a little girl's right hand and fingers a tender mercy?  

For starters, the accident could have been much worse.  I could have suffered even worse injuries or even death that day.  

Probably the greatest tender mercy from that accident is the fact that the experiences I went through as a very young child, alone in the hospital for the first time ever away from loving parents and family learned to have faith in a loving God, a Heavenly Father.  I learned that he hears and answers our prayers and can provide us with comfort and peace.  Yes, I was alone and sad and afraid, and probably in pain, but my Mother had taught me that I could pray, even in a hospital crib far away from my family.  And my loving Heavenly Father brought me comfort and peace.

This may be the very hay derrick that I injured myself on . . . photo taken about 40 years after the accident.