True Fear

I have had many fears over the years - spiders, snakes, etc. You know...the typical fears. The older that I have gotten I have had a few more fears emerge such as my teeth falling out, big waves, being alone, mice...I know, I am weird. I really do have dreams/nightmares about the teeth and the waves! I have, what I like to call, an unrealistic fear of mice. I know that a mouse cannot harm me, but I am deathly afraid of them. It doesn't help that the rental we are living in is on a big field and we have at least one mouse a week show up on a sticky trap:) As real as those fears are to me, I have experienced "TRUE FEAR" twice in my adult life, and they both involved my children. When Haleigh was about 6 weeks old, she fell out of her car seat from a shopping cart onto the ground in the Wal-Mart parking lot. I will never forget that day for the rest of my life. Her and Mark were ahead of me in the parking lot, and she looked like a rag doll falling to the ground. We were terrified. We took her to the ER immediately, and I just knew that they were going to take her away from us for child endangerment. They didn't, and she was just fine, but it was one of the most terrifying days in my life. All of my children have been securely fastened in their baby carrier while in the grocery cart ever since, by the way. Well, this last weekend, I had another one of those truly scary moments in my life. While we were camping at Ft. Richardson, Jacob took a fall into the lake. Mark, Craig and Jacob were fishing from the ledge of an old quarry that has been turned into a lake. Well, Jacob was casting pretty forcefully I guess, and he cast himself right off the ledge. He fell about 8-10 feet down into the lake. I heard Mark and Craig make a gasp, I guess, and I look up to see Mark taking a flying leap below into the lake. I was a little ways down the lake watching the girls. Well, I just knew that the worst case scenario must have happened - that's how I am - such a pessimist. I had a feeling that Jacob hit his head on the rocks below and was sinking to the bottom of the lake and Mark wouldn't get to him on time. By the time I ran to them, Mark had pushed Jacob to the rocks and Craig was waiting to pull him up. He had popped up to the surface and was kicking his arms and legs. He was unharmed except for a badly scraped arm (that no doubt protected his head from hitting the rocks). He was really scared, but he handled himself really well. Mark was fine too, but it made for a really scary morning. The fear I felt at those moments was nothing like the fear I have of mice - and I hope that I don't feel that kind of fear again! He went back to the lake later in the day - with much resistance and crying, but we needed him to get back on that horse! We stayed on flat ground on the opposite side of the lake though!