There was an incident over the summer this year that I didn't mention much about. I touched on it briefly in another post closer to the date of the event. Now I'm ready to talk about it; The ATV accident. No joking. This was a serious, emotional event for our family.

We were all at a friends house. They live on a farm/ranch so animals were everywhere and Braden loves animals. He loved walking after the rooster, intimidating the poor thing, until my son turned his back and the rooster immediately turned the tables, coming after my son and attacking him. But he got over it soon enough. I knew roosters were capable of that. When I was a kid my family had a rooster. I failed as a parent to protect my son from that damn rooster on this day.

Follow up:

I felt bad about the rooster attack. Little did I know that incident would be dwarfed within minutes.

There was an ATV (some call them quads). Our friend just had to grab some hay, put it on the back, and ride the short distance down to the donkeys to deliver their evening supper. "Does Braden want to go?" Sure he does. He'd love to ride on the ATV. Nevermind that he had no helmet and was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. (As a sidebar, we never let him ride his scooter or his bike without a helmet.)

We allowed Braden to get on the ATV. What harm could come?

He loved the little ride down to the donkeys that were braying like crazy in anticipation of their feast. Their food was served, the goats got some too, and so we were headed back up the hill towards the house. Of course Braden was riding back up on the ATV with our friend while we would walk up.

Our friend got on the seat. Then Braden got on in front. Wait. We had to snap a picture. This was too cute! We took a few pics.

Pointing at the throttle, "Press right here." ...

Time froze.

We didn't want to witness the events that were about to unfold.

Braden was micro-seconds away from pushing the throttle.

Time wasn't going to wait for us.

He gave it so much gas that this huge ATV jumped, and the front end came WAAAAAAAY up off the ground and the whole thing lunged forward like a rocket. My wife and I stood there helplessly watching for hours. At least that's how it felt. In truth, it was over in seconds.

With the front tires up in the sky our friend was thrown off the back, then a micro-second later Braden was thrown off. The vehicle kept moving forward and jumped up and over and through the barbed wire fence and landed on it's side. Or maybe it landed upside down. I don't quite remember.

Our son was laying on the ground crying. We were scared like never before. AND I MEAN SCARED. The seat that our son was sitting on had been impaled on a steel fence post. It's good he was crying. That meant he was still alive.

I can't begin to explain how scared we were. Our son was surely in need of an emergency room.

We ran over to him and immediately picked him up out of the dirt and thorns. He was crying at the top of his lungs. I gave him a once over. Checked him for injuries, for blood, for broken protruding bones. I found nothing. He was hardly touched. Yes, he was dirty but he was hardly scathed. We couldn't believe it. My wife was crying. I held it inside, but I felt the same.

On our way home I broke down in tears. I knew it was welling up in me. It had been such a scary incident to us as parents. WE KNEW HE WAS BADLY INJURED. HE HAD TO BE AFTER THAT HORRIBLE WRECK. And yet, somehow he was untouched.

On the way home we spoke about it. That was the only thing on our minds. It was THAT traumatic. We could think of nothing else. We spoke about how it happened, why it happened, why we let it happen. It was our fault. We didn't blame our friend.

God sent us a message that day. To put in words He told us, "You think dealing with autism is tough? You think your challenges are great and the rewards are minimal? WAKE UP! This precious child I've given you is a gift - a good gift. Cherish him. Take care of him. Enjoy him. Because I could've easily taken him, the source of so much of your troubles and challenges, away today. THEN you'd really know what strife is. Have a renewed sense of joy in those challenges because those challenges themselves are beautiful and good."

Praise the Lord for that wake up call.