Honey, I Got A Sliver!

     There is one thing our children love doing with their dad and that is hooking up a small trailer in back of the riding lawn mower and going for a ride around the area.  They all have so much fun.  He will ride up and down the ditch to give the children a thrilling homemade roller coaster ride.  Other times he will ride to the old Pere Marquette Railroad (the railroad was already taken out and eventually made into a paved trail.  At this time it was unpaved) and explore the area for edible berries and other interesting finds.  One particular trip they all would learn a very important lesson on God's creations.

    

     The summer of 2005 was well in the making.  I was 8 months pregnant with our fifth child.  It was a beautiful day and Brian decided to take our four children out for a tractor ride to give me a few moments of quiet relaxation.  I watched them for a moment outside as Brian rode around the yard.  The older kids were sitting at the edge of the trailer letting their feet sweep across the grass underneath them.  They all had smiles on their faces enjoying the ride.  Brian headed north to the trails.  The kids happily waved good-bye to me and I waved back at them.  In their heads they knew they would be on another exciting adventure with daddy.  As they rode out of sight I walked back into the house and listened to the quiet.  I went and laid down on the couch for a moment. 

     The phone rang.  It was Brian calling from his cell phone.  "We are on our way home.  Get the first-aid kit ready."

     Panic sweeps across my mind, "What happened?  Are the kids okay?"

     "Kids are fine.  I just got a sliver."  he said calmly.

     We hung up the phone and I smiled at the thought of my husband worrying about a little sliver.  I went and retrieved our first-aid kit and waited to play the part of a nurse.  Off in the distance I heard the sound of the mower coming closer and closer.  They came into view.  The kids still looked like they were having a good time.  Brian dropped off the kids and went to put away the mower.   They came in all talking at once about grass so tall that it was over their heads and how daddy got a huge sliver.  I listened to their stories waiting for Brian to come inside.  Then my husband walks in the door. 

     He had his hand behind his back.  I look at him with a humours smile thinking how a little sliver can cause this grown man to call me to have the first-aid kit waiting.  What a baby I thought lovingly as I chuckled a little.  "Are you ready to see this?" he asked.

     I half rolled my eyes in humor at what I was about to see.  Brian brings his hand around.   At first glance I thought I was looking at Freddy Kruger's hand.  This wasn't a sliver.  This was a piercing!  I looked at my small tweezers and realized that tweezers would be useless.  It looked like a couple of huge skewers stabbed into my husband's thumb.  One entered just above his thumb joint and exited out from the top of his thumb right below the nail.  This was not a little splinter how I imagined it.  I know I must of gasped.  I looked up at Brian in horror.  "How did THAT happen?"





The grass piercing threw Brian's thumb.  Ashton looking amuzingly up at daddy's thumb.



    He told me how on their ride they came upon grass taller than he was.  He tried to pull the grass shoot to bring it home to show me.  The grass near the base splintered off and pierced my husband's thumb.  He never knew grass to do that.  I think he mostly felt bad that he couldn't bring it home to show me.  "Pull it out."  Brian says.

     I gave him a look of shock.  I cannot handle gross things like this in person.  Just looking at it gave me a chill.  I examined his hand closely.  I didn't even know how to begin to pull it out.  I looked at Brian again with a worried look.  "I don't know if I can."

     "Just try it."  I gave a little tug on one end.  It didn't move.  I tried a bit harder.  I could tell Brian winced at it.  I quickly stopped pulling. 

     "I can't do this."  I looked at him wondering what to do.  I know some small slivers, if you let them be, will work themselves out.  I don't think this was going to work its way out on its own. 

     We decided that the best way to take it out was to go to the emergency room in Reed City, Mi.  He drove himself while I stayed back with the kids.  Several hours later he came back with the large piece of grass in a clear plastic bowl.  He said the staff was so amazed by the grass piercing that they brought in other medical staff to look at it.  They ooh'd and ahh'd over it.  Brian told the doctor we took pictures of it and he said he wanted a copy of one.  He never heard of grass piercing anyone like this and was just amazed by it.

     Brian quickly healed from the wound.  He still enjoys going on tractor rides giving the kids an adventure.  Now he thinks twice about pulling something, free-handedly, out of the Earth.