When Lightening Strikes
By
Tena Bastian
We talk a lot about the cowgirl spirit and sisterhood and who in your life really has your back when the going gets tough. We talk about promises and the importance of keeping them and we sometimes make vows as husband and wife and when we do, it should be for a lifetime, not just until the going gets tough and the vows are broken.
Cowgirls are rock solid and contrary to the Brookes and Dunn song, we DO cry but we never break. If there is a problem, we fix it. If things get tough, we work it out and when someone needs us, we’re there. We have each other’s back when it really counts but juggling all the things in our lives such as our careers, our husbands, children, other family responsibilities takes its toll on us. It is at our lowest point that we have to remember to reach out to one another and ask for help.
Pride should never stand in the way of picking up the phone and calling a friend and saying, “I need you”. I wanted to share a rather personal story with you that absolutely took me to that deepest, darkest place that all of us fear and pray that we never have to go. In sharing this with you, I hope that each of you know in your heart that if you ever pick up that phone and dial my number, I will answer, I will give you a shoulder to cry on and I will help if I can.
It had been a long year riddled with many hospital visits for both my daughter who has Crohns disease and my husband Bear who had an infection from a tooth extraction that traveled to his heart, brain and spine and caused major damage to him at 47 years old. He had gone through three strokes, two open heart surgeries, two back surgeries and at this point, had two metal valves in his heart and a pacemaker keeping him alive. To look at him, aside from looking pale, you really wouldn’t know that anything was wrong with him but we were so very lucky that he was even alive as he had flat lined twice during his many hospital stays and was on so much medication that we had trouble keeping them straight. It felt like we were being struck by lightning with no time to really gather our thoughts between emergencies. Most days, it was difficult to even breathe.
It was early spring, approximately four months after his last open heart surgery when we got a frantic call from a neighbor saying that her horse had been kicked by another horse and had “a hole in his forehead”. We knew that this particular neighbor had quite a flare for the dramatic but she needed us, so we went. To be more precise, Bear went to check it out while I put dinner on hold. He came back to tell me that she needed a vet because there was a hole in the horses head about the size of his fist. I called a friend who is a vet and asked him if he would come have a look. We told him that we would meet him back down at her barn.
When we arrived, there really wasn’t much blood but in the hole, you could see bone fragments that needed to be cleaned out and staples would be needed to close the wound. The barn was dark which made it difficult to see, so Bear grabbed a metal lead light from the tack room and held it over us while I held the wound together and the vet stapled it. By this time, more neighbors had gathered to watch in curiosity bringing the total number of people to ten. There were ten people standing in a room in the barn which was approximately 20 x 20 feet.
Thunder rolled in the distance signaling that a storm was approaching. It rumbled a second time and then a loud clap of thunder that sounded like it was right on top of us. What happened next was one of those things that happens so fast and yet seems to move in slow motion. Suddenly a ball of lightening came through the barn, past nine of us and struck the one person who had spent the previous year fighting to stay alive. With two metal valves in his heart and a metal lead light in his hand, the lightning was drawn to Bear and when it struck him, the bulb burst and the barn went dark. The ball of light traveled through the electric system to the tower just outside the barn and blacked out the entire road.
Just as it went dark, the last thing I saw was my husband being thrown back onto some bales of hay and everyone fell silent. I scrambled for my cell phone to call an ambulance, my heart racing, completely unable to breathe. All I could think about was how hard we had fought to keep him alive from a freak illness that began with a tooth and now I would lose him to actually being struck by lightning. As difficult as it had been during that year, I never left his side, and had spent months at a time writing my books from a hospital room and now here we were in a neighbors barn on a stormy night and it was all for nothing because if fate wanted him, it would take him no matter how hard we fought to keep him here.
I can’t tell you how many thoughts like that rushed through my mind in those few seconds following that moment. I can’t possibly explain how frightened I was that he would die. I heard him whisper at first, saying “I’m all right”. Then a little louder, “I’m not hurt”, he said “I’m all right”. He stood and by the grace of God, the man did not have one scratch on him. He was shaken and a little disoriented but he was alive. Nine people witnessed nothing short of a miracle.
This week marks the anniversary of that night so I thought it appropriate to use this story to make my point. That point being that although we are cowgirls and rock solid, we all need someone to help us get through the tough times in our lives. He needed me, I needed my friends and I can tell you that when I called them, they had my back. That is something that I will never forget and I promised that I would return that favor every chance I got and I think I have. It taught me a lesson about friendship and keeping promises and staying strong for those we love and even for those we barely know.
When lightning strikes in your life whether it be literally or metaphorically, pick up the phone and when the voice on the other end says hello, never be afraid to say, “I need you”. Here’s to friendship and the cowgirl spirit and my sisters; my cowgirls who are always there for me because any woman can be a friend but only a Cowgirl has your back!