So we got on the flight to DFW (Dallas Fort Worth) and half hour into the flight, Anna comlained of sharp pain in her side. It was bad enough that she started to cry. Soojin got scared… her mom had appendicitis and the symptoms seemed to be similar…. pain coming and going.
When we landed, Soojin asked ME what we should do. Let me just say, it’s freakin’ huge responsibility to be responsible for one life, let alone three! I wasn’t sure of what to do… but with a child traveling and less than an hour to our connecting flight, I figured it’s better safe than sorry.
So I asked for the paramedics. They came and started to look at Anna. She was still complaining of pain. They didn’t think it was appendicitis and when they had asked me if we wanted Anna taken to hospital, I decided that we’d try to wait it out as our flight now was gone and had to get on a different flight.
At that point, I had missed a call from Paul Minifee. When I had called back, his father Dr. Paul Minifee, was next to him. You see, he’s a senior doctor at Children’s Hospital in Houston! So with such awesome knowledge available, I laid the concerns to him. He then asked if Anna’s appetite was gone. She said she was hungry. He then asked if Anna could touch her toes quickly without bending her knees. And she could. Dr. Minifee said that if she had appendicitis, she wouldn’t have appetite nor be able to bend and touch toes w/o pain in the side. Whew.
Got off the phone. I held Anna and started rubbing her back… felt bit of knots on her left spine so I massaged that away. Then everyone (except me) wanted pizza for lunch so we ate that. Anna felt better by this point and when we walked over to the other gate for our new connecting flight, I was worried that we wouldn’t get on… but I guess the other agent had left note on our case and reason for missing the previous flight ’cause the new one called me as Mr. Jang and asked me about how Anna was doing, and that they’d get us seats soon.
Though they had charged us $60 for luggage ($15 X 4), at least their service didn’t suck. We finally flew into La Guardia airport and we were welcomed with NYC’s finest drivers and 2 hour traffic. But we are home. Thank God.
So as many of you know by now, Soojin was in an accident on the way to BSF leaders’ meeting. Usually, JJ would be riding with her but since it was a holiday week for Anna, Soojin asked her co-worker to watch them in the morning. Thus we are so thankful that neither of the kids were in the car.
Though I do not know the entire details, here are what is known about the accident. Soojin was on Pineloch left lane and a landscaping truck was on the right and there was a contact that made her veer off the road into the median and hit the big lamp post. The car was totaled in my opinion. The entire front was gone along with radiator, the wheels, and both of the airbags that went off. The other vehicle and 3 people were fine. I only saw a dent on the side of the drivers door. They didn’t seem to speak English or worse, didn’t have insurance and thus didn’t say anything. I felt bad for them but at the same time mad.
Soojin was bleeding badly in the eye but turned out to be due to a small gash between the eyes. My current hero(ine) is a woman named Ginger. She is the good Samaritan who saw Soojin crash and pulled over to help her get out of the car and stayed with her until I got there. Ginger is now my current favorite name of the decade!
Soojin complained of large pain in the right abdominal side and was rushed to ER. I had asked Pastor Shawn to pray for Soojin but he ended up coming out to the hospital (after I gave him the wrong hospital name! - Southwest Memorial Hermann when it should’ve been Southeast). Her CAT scan came back negative for internal damages, so we are thankful for that as well.
And Younhe with her two kids came by to see Soojin at home. This does not include all the family and friends that prayed for Soojin and gave all the kind words. So I wanted to thank everyone who took part in caring for Soojin in this difficult times.
Please pray for the car that the insurance would file it as totaled and not try to have it fixed, and that the amount for the car would be favorable. After that, we will have to shop for a replacement car. That Lincoln Continental was named as “admiral” since it felt like a boat. It served faithfully to the end protecting the driver to its end. Now that I have to say goodbye to it, it’s a bit saddening having developed “정” (jung that means emotional bond) for it.
I don’t know why the accident happened nor will I likely find out, but since God was with her, we are trying not to question it, and just being thankful for all that came out of it… 1) no kids were involved and 2) Soojin didn’t incur any serious damage. “God is good all the time. All the time, God is good.”
Ok, I don’t know if it’s an original one… but on the way to Anna’s piano lesson, JJ started off the conversation that soon turned into a [repeating] joke.
JJ: Y-E-S spells ‘yes’.
Anna: Yes, it does spell ‘yes’.
And they kept on repeating and then soon laughter ensued. Rather endlessly. It was rather a cute occurrence really. I guess you just had to be there.
Last year when Anna started school as a Kindergartener, I had the privilege of taking her to school more or less everyday. After weaning from separation anxiety, each morning she’d go to her class but as she walked away, she’d look back several times to me and wave goodbye. Even a teacher who stood in the area eventually picked up on Anna’s habit and would predict on when she’d turn back to look at me and wave one last time. Naturally, I stood to see her off until she wasn’t in my sight anymore.
This year as a first grader, I guess she’s getting into it much more. Now when she walks to her class, there has been increasing number of times when she just would wave without looking back. At first, I thought she was in a hurry or something… or maybe I just wished so. She did it again several times this week… and honestly, it’s sad. I can only imagine how things would change when she’s older… Ah the growing pains…
Kids are rather insightful a lot of times. I think it’s their untainted mind that allows them this capability. They will tell it to you like it is. No candy wrappers around what they say… unlike politicians or adults. Case in point - Anna loves to make cards for people. She normally makes cards for us but we found this one yesterday.
You have to pay attention to the details here. You see the nature on the card, right? The sun, sky, flower, and the land? There is a smiley in it… that’s God. Why? According to Anna, that’s because God is everywhere! That is just so precious! And on the back, the recipient and the sender…
We were so pleased… it made our day! I sure hope my heart will be as pure as hers! God is everywhere…
So with Anna’s diminishing interest in ballet/dancing, she drew interest in piano.
This past Wednesday marked her first tutoring lesson. She was very excited to learn. And the teacher was very good and got along great with Anna. Our take on Anna’s learning to play piano isn’t so much that she would become a professional at it. Far from it. Actually, I hope she doesn’t.
We wanted her to learn music so that it would help her in getting through life. I believe that music, among many other things, can give the person the ability to pull through tough times. I wanted Anna to have that when things got tough and she needed a way to release her emotions and frustrations.
This also meant that I have to oversee her practicing it 15 minutes a day! Yikes! :O But in the end, I hope she will be able to use it to help herself and others get through tough times of life. Is that weird of me?
As most of you know by now, we fared well. I had to finish to some work from home and by 8 pm Thursday night, we were ready to evacuate as we were in the mandatory evacuation zone. :o So we headed west to Pastor Shawn’s place not realizing that there were already some evacuees already!
At least it was a good time to meet Pastor Luke and his family, as well as Shelly, who is new to our church. We avoided driving in the daytime because of heat and too much traffic on the road. Surely enough, by the time we left in the evening, traffic was almost at normal speeds.
Staying at Pastor Shawn’s is always a joy as there’s no stress. However, power went out on Friday late afternoon and humidity began to settle in. :( So it was a great excuse to cook up all the Korean BBQ stuff in his freezer!! :D Whoot! Then came the Ike later that night. It was rather loud as expected… lots of gusts of wind and cracking sounds… but you know me, I slept like a baby.
On Saturday morning, it was evident that this storm was rather a powerful one. We had anticipated that knowing that this hurricane’s diameter was about 300 to 400 miles wide! However, upon visual inspection, it was even more so. Trees had fallen everywhere and fell everywhere. Power went out in 90+% of the Houston area. And surge had caused most of coastal areas to be flooded. We drove to Mike’s place in order to drop off Pastor Shawn’s freezer goods and noticed that damage was even bigger than we had thought. Here’s our ride in video…
Once the humidity was killing us, we decided to head over to John & Joanne’s place for shelter as they had power as well. We had originally planned to evacuate to Chung & Celeste’s home but they also had lost power. John & Joanne are another very hospitable family. Later on, Pastor Shawn’s family, Luke’s family, and Shelly came over for dinner and hung out. With TV, we had learned that the Houston downtown had suffered quite a bit of casualty as well and that due to more rains that followed, Houston was in flash flood warning!
So Sunday’s service was canceled due to flash flooding. Then Min & Daniel’s family came over for lunch. I had left our answering machine on so that we could find out easily & quickly if we had power or not. Well, power at our place had gone out Friday but came back on Sunday!
So after buying some more food and such from Komart (gotta give it to the Koreans for being open!), we headed home. Traffic and roads were fine. But at least 80% or more of the traffic lights were out due to power and/or damage.
Then I had found out that my work was closed for Monday. Anna’s school was canceled through Wednesday. Eventually, my work place closed for the entire week, and so was Soojin’s school, and Anna’s school! So we are having our unexpected week-long break. We had checked out Target the other day and still milk and dairy, as well as fresh produce were pretty much out. Gas was still in a bit of tight squeeze but we hope the conditions will fare better.
But in overall, we are thankful that all of our friends and family in Christ are well. We wanted to take this time to thank Pastor Shawn’s family and John’s family for always leaving us an open and welcome doors, and for everyone else for checking up on how we are doing.
None of our properties or cars were damaged but if you had, be sure to head over to FEMA website to register for possible reimbursements and repair costs. Be safe everyone!
Now that I have to say goodbye to it, it’s a bit saddening having developed “정” (jung that means emotional bond) for it.
