A minute later, he was freaking out. Their house burned down last night. That’s the sort of sentence that you can’t help but read at least twice, but it is true. The rest of the morning was spent trying to get as much information from a distance as possible. Rachel’s sister Beka was on the scene fairly quickly, and they also got a good bit of support from their church and neighbors. Over time, we found out that the fire started with some creosote in the chimney, even though they hadn’t had a fire in their wood stove for about three days. Also, both dogs survived and were found, though both are shaken and one got burned on his face pretty badly.

We were thankful that we could love them through the worst of the shock today. We were in the middle of making Rachel’s Family’s traditional Valentine’s day breakfast when the news came in: Peanut butter french toast in the shape of hearts, pineapple rings, bacon, and parfaits made with frosted flakes, cherry pie filling, and vanilla ice cream. Rachel and I roused ourselves from our melancholy after a while and finished preparing these things, and we sat down to “breakfast” at around 11:30am. By the end of the meal, Rachel’s folks were beginning to make wry comments about the situation, and everyone was feeling a little better with food in their stomachs. Rachel’s sister Jennifer took them clothes shopping, and we had dinner at her house this evening with a few mutual friends from church.

All in all, it was a very surreal day but it ended tolerably well. Indeed, the whole situation could have been a lot worse. In their house, the wood stove had been at the foot of the stairs to the second floor, where Rachel’s little brother Nik usually slept. If they had been home when this happened, it would have been highly likely that someone would gotten seriously hurt or even killed. As it is now, we all have a lot to be thankful for. Rachel’s family got many offers for a place to stay from families in their church, and her dad’s work associates will be putting together a collection for them. They’ve often talked about building a house on a more scenic part of their property, and now Rachel’s Mom can get the new kitchen that she wanted but couldn’t do without the old kitchen long enough to get. You never want something like this to happen, but the love that can flow in the aftermath of such a tragedy is truly a wonderful sight to behold.

Our Plant CEO told us (my paraphrase) that the pluses and minuses of which plant to close are close enough to make the decision not immediately obvious and it would take a few weeks to add all considerations up very carefully to see which way the balance tips. He told us that the data would be collected and processed in early December, and that the decision would be announced sometime during the week of December 15th.

He also said that whichever plant would be closed, it would continue operations “into 2010″, so there was no reason to panic about not having a job to come back to after Christmas or anything like that. I also know that I personally will have things to do at least until next summer if not beyond.

Even if the Blythewood plant were to be the one to stay open, there would still be many challenges and changes to be dealt with, as all the products and I presume a lot of the personnel from Virginia would be coming down here to be incorporated into our everyday operations. So things will be changing one way or the other, and we will know which way right before Christmas.

I have been wondering if/when something like this would happen, and it is a relief to know when the turning point is coming. It has been growing in my mind that my family might encounter a “life reboot” some time in the near future, and this might be the event that triggers it.

Should the worst happen, there will be many options to consider:

• It could be possible to move up to Virginia with the company in a new position. In general, this moves us farther away from both sides of the family (and many good friends), which I’d rather not do if I didn’t have to.
• When I looked a couple months ago, the Westinghouse plant south of town was looking for a few engineers, and I have a friend who works there who could put in a good word for me.
• Also, my best friend from high school works as a recruiter a French nuclear power company that has a Research & Development office in Charlotte. When I talked to him on the phone a few weeks ago, he told me that business was good and that I could send him my resume anytime.
• I’m sure there are a few other options that I can’t even conceive of at this moment…

Being of a perverse and contrary nature, I am feeling relatively calm and optimistic in the face of these circumstances. I normally have an approach-avoidance conflict with any kind of change, but the Lord has been working in my heart over the last year and I believe he has been preparing me for whatever changes will come.

From what our Plant CEO said, he sounded genuinely unsure about which way it could go, and I got the impression from what he said it truly could go either way. When a situation is balanced on a knife edge, I know that the best thing to do is pray that the Lord’s will be done, and that he is pleased to use those prayers to move things for his glory and our good. So I would ask that you pray that God’s will would be done here, and I give thanks that He has given me a considerable amount of peace regarding whatever the future holds.

That’s it for now. I will definitely keep you posted.

Rachel held him on her lap and cleaned him up okay. For a few minutes anyway, everything seemed okay. But a whole bunch of white stuff went all over the place again, more than the first time, and it was in his mouth and his nose. He didn’t make any noise, and Rachel cried out in shock and dismay. “This isn’t good,” she said. She immediately started the anti-choking measures that the nurse showed us before she and Jack were discharged from the hospital. “Where’s the phone? Call 911!” I found the phone and typed in those three digits. Just then Jack let out a good wail, so I didn’t press the green button that would actually call the number. “Get the nasal aspirator!” Rachel said. I got it, and Rachel sucked out his nostrils. He wailed once or twice more, and it was apparent that he was breathing properly. Rachel got Jack’s wet clothes off of him, and I held him against my chest the way he likes me to, careful to keep him upright in case anything else came up. He burped, sighed, and promptly fell asleep on my chest, wearing only a diaper.

Rachel called the pediatrician on call and he said it was too soon to tell if it was the new formula itself or that we just gave him too much. So I guess we’ll try again with less formula and some pumped breastmilk and see if that’s better. With lots of hugs and cuddles and a few tears and prayers of thanks, we should hopefully make it through the rest of the day quietly. Between this past week with Nik here, the spit-up incident this morning and spending this past weekend up at the farm, we have a bit of laundry and chores to do today. Jack’s waking up in his swing now. I think I’ll go hold him for a while.

I heard Jack crying back there, but he sometimes does this before he settles down to feed, so I didn’t think anything of it, until I realized that the crying had been going on longer than usual. I went to the back of the house and found Rachel crying too. “What did I do wrong??” she said. I took Jack from her to give her a few minutes to calm down, and I asked her where the bottle of milk she pumped was. It was already in the freezer, apparently. She tried to get the bottle warmer to work but couldn’t. She took Jack back, who was still fussing pretty bad, and tried to get him to feed again. I found the instructions for the bottle warmer on the maker’s website, and got it working. I finished my half-melted ice cream, and then took the bottle out of the warmer. It was too hot! I stuck it in the fridge for a few minutes, got its temperature down a bit, and took it to the back of the house. Jack had slowly calmed down and was feeding tolerably well. Rachel thought the bottle was still a bit too warm, so it was put aside. I suggested that Rachel call a friend, L., who has a few kids, for her perspective and for a friendly ear, and she eventually agreed. Jack took to the bottle pretty well, too, so he was doing better. I called up L., and she asked if she should come over. “She can come over if she wants to,” Rachel answered. “For her, that’s a “yes”,” I said to L., passing on the message. L. said that she would be over in about ten minutes.

By this time, it was almost 9pm, and Rachel suggested I check up on Nik, who I had almost forgotten about while trying to help Jack and Rachel. When I came into the den, I found Nik crying. All the crying had frayed his nerves, I guess, and he was feeling a little homesick, too [Nik is Rachel's 8-year-old brother and is staying with us for the week for VBS at our church]. I hugged him, asked him to forgive me for forgetting about him, and suggested that I read him a book. We sat down to Shel Silverstein’s book “The Giving Tree”, and about halfway through the story, he had stopped sobbing, and by the end of the story, he was smiling again. Rachel’s friend L. got there about that time, and Nik and I left them in the living room to talk, and went into the den to read “Runaway Bunny”, which Nik hadn’t heard of but liked very much. He also enjoyed a couple of silly Homestar Runner toons, too.

After about 40 minutes, L. went home, Rachel was feeling better, and Nik was ready for bed. We battened down the hatches for the night, and Rachel thanked me for being there for everybody.

All I can say is, tomorrow should be better.

Also, the nurse is having her lie on her side to help keep her blood pressure down some.

Keep praying…

~3:00am this morning – Rachel can’t sleep because she’s in pain. She takes her temperature — 101 deg F — and we call the doctor. He said we should come into the hospital because it is likely an infection that can only be treated by intravenous antibiotics. We drive to Lexington Medical Center [with pre-packed bags, just in case] sail right through the Emergency Room waiting room and right up into the Maternity Ward, pretty dazed.

~6:45am – After the nurse and doctor talk with and examine Rachel, there is finally some good medicine flowing into her veins. The doctor says that she may only be here for about a day and will probably get to leave tomorrow morning. I call both sets of parents to let them know what is going on and a fellow tenor in the choir at Church to let them know that I won’t be in church this morning. I also call Rachel’s sister to put our dogs out and feed them.

8:30am – We still get to hear the church service, because our church recently starting streaming all its services over the internet. It’s almost as good as being there, what with the pastoral hymn-singing solos, and the one-sided pastoral small talk from our senior pastor leaving his microphone on at the end before he realizes what’s going on.

9:30am – Rachel finally gets some breakfast. The nurse tells us that the place has been busy: They’ve had four births in one hour! We can’t help but wonder if one of them is the Andersons’ baby (a couple in our Sunday School class), who has been due to be born for about a week.

11:00am – They move us to another room, and Rachel declares herself hungry again. Almost as if on cue, her lunch comes in at around 11:30am. While she eats, I find out that the Lexington Medical wi-fi network blocks Blogger. One more reason not to like blogger.

12:20pm – I decide to get home to take care of the dogs and get a few things that Rachel would like from home. I get out on the road and realize that I probably shouldn’t be out on the road, because its raining cows and horses. I keep my hands on the wheel, my eyes on the road, and a prayer on my lips [having experienced driving foolishly in the rain in Columbia], and take it real easy driving home.

1:20pm – I make it safely home, find my poor dog Mercy without the sense to come in out of the rain. I bring her in and towel her off, and just to let our other dog Kat know that everything is okay, I have a glass of Ovaltine and scratch her ears thoroughly.

3:00pm –Back at the hospital, Rachel and I watch Law & Order reruns, and Jennifer shows up to visit.

5:00pm –With Jennifer there, I feel able to duck out and attend vesper choir practice and participate in the evening service. The choir practiced “Love Never Fails” by J.A.C. Redford [5MB mp3 file] and, as usual, I choke up a little bit while hearing it. That song is very intertwined into our marriage. I sung the solo of it on the day that Rachel and I started “going steady”, The Chancel choir sung that as the anthem at our wedding, and LOVE NEVER FAILS is inscribed on the inside of our wedding rings. To top it all off, the vesper choir will be singing it next Sunday, which is Mother’s Day, which is Jack’s due date. It’s like God is conspiring to get me to break down and bawl my head off for joy. But besides the emotional reaction I’m pretty much doomed to have, He is also constantly, continually, and powerfully reminding me that His love is so powerful and infinite that it has to manifest itself in many, many ways, so as to make one’s head spin for the wonder of it all. In particular, tonight I thought of all that my wife means to me, and how she loves me so well its almost frightening how little I deserve any of it. I also thought of my son Jack soon to be born, and how heart-rending it is to see my beloved ill and prayed all the more fervently for her to be healed and for Jack to come out easily to meet us, strong and healthy.

6:00pm – …Anyway, I help sing the offertory with my fellow choir members, stay for an excellent sermon that kicks off a promising series on the book of Jonah, the “runaway prophet”, but I don’t stay for communion, because I want to get back to Rachel. I get there at…

7:20pm – …and find the hospital cafeteria already closed. So I walk across the street, and get some dinner at the Atlanta Bread Company, then I come back to share some of my chocolate chip muffin with her and watch an episode from Due South, season 3. I tell her, “I love you. Call me tomorrow… and don’t forget to call me tomorrow. I love you…” until she smiles, and then (what the hey?) I drive down the highway through more cows-and-horses rain at 45 miles an hour with my emergency blinkers on to finally come home at around…

9:45pm – …much to the relief of our poor dogs. But for me time moves ever and ever slower, and I will have no relief until my whole family is back home safe and sound. Good night, strange world. I will be back in your face in the morning, however early that may be.

I was approaching an intersection on Main Street in Fairfax and another car was in front of me. The light had turned yellow, and the car in front of me stopped as the yellow light ripened to red. I blinked and didn’t put on the brakes hard enough, I guess, and Rachel made a noise of alarm as i slammed down and swerved as much as i could into the left lane. Our corners still bashed together, and i sat there vexed and stunned. The other guy pulled into the entrance of the housing development to our right, and i did the same. Sometime while i was doing this, Rachel said, “Oh Ben, i wasn’t wearing my seltbelt!” I put the car in park and noticed with amazement the spider in the upper right part of the windshield that Rachel had made. We got out of the car, and i asked the other guy if he was okay. He said he was okay, as i saw that the left end of his bumper had come loose.

A guy and his wife were standing on the sidewalk and he offered the use of his PDA cellphone to call 911, which i did. I called Mom on my own cellphone next, but had to ring off as the police officer drove up. The policeman took everybody’s legal documents, gave us each a small information form to fill out, and while he sat in his cruiser processing those things, all i could do was hang my head and wish that I could start this day over.

The police officer sent off the other guy, and then talked to us about tickets he wrote us: one for me for “Failing to maintain proper control of vehicle”, and one for Rachel for “failing to wear a seltbelt”. His grasp of the finer points of traffic law and friendly voice was strangely comforting to me. We got directions to the nearest hospital, and after he drove off, talked to my parents again, who said that they would meet us after church at the Fairfax hospital. We had decided to take Rachel to the emergency room since she had bounced around a little more than she should have.

I drove the few block to the hospital with my emergency blinkers on, dropped Rachel off at the entrance and parked in one of the lots. We waited the first of many interminable amounts of time in the room of the same name, and then got called back. The more time passed, the better she felt, and the worse she felt about coming in at all. Practically speaking though, i said, she was in a car accident without a seatbelt, so it was only right that she get checked out. We both had our own regrets to ponder as we waited through those hours together. My parents made contact, and came through the curtain with a “knock, knock”, and we split up to do more useful things: Mom waited with Rachel, and Dad and i walked out to the parking lot to assess the damage and report it to the insurance company.

My parents had graciously offered us the use of their car to drive back home to Carolina that day whenever we were done with our self-inflicted tour of the urgent medical bureacracy. So while i called in the car accident to the insurance company, dad switched the baggages of the two cars. After this was done, we went back in to wait with Rachel and Mom.

The doctor came in, and kicked my parents and I out into the waiting room. The Steelers/Redskins game was on the TV, and I had my book, but the wait was pretty maddening. All told, it took us about five and a half hours to get out the doors. We were all frustrated, but relieved that Rachel was okay.

Rachel and I followed my folks to the body shop, and I parked my Corolla, filled out a form and put the key in the envelope, and slipped it through the slot in the door.

We went back to the condo for turkey sandwiches, hugs, and sendoffs. We left Arlington around 6pm. The traffic was pretty awful for the first hour or so coming out of the DC area. Given the events of the day, I was extremely careful to follow that rule taought to all of us when we first learned to drive: for every 10 miles per hour, stay that many carlengths behind the car in front of the car in front of you. And my adherence to the rule did actually come in useful a few times.

We landed on our driveway around 1:30am, accomplishing a sort of mirror image of how we left Columbia. All this and work the next day, too.