4-wheeler

It has been awhile since i have written. I will do alittle updating. Summer had some unexpected turns, but then isn't that the way things usually plays out. At the end of may, we were planning on coming to see mom, and warren, steph and her kids were also going to be there. It was going to be a lot of fun, we had not seen steph and her kids in a long time, and mom was really excited for us all to be coming. Brooke and i were leaving as soon as she finished with her last day of school.Warren and steph were already there a couple of days ahead of us.  I was in at Walmart, (the place that seems to get way too much of my money), anyway when my phone rang. I seen it was Warren's cell number, so i just answered it by saying, we are still coming today, just going to be later than I thought. There was a long pause, and he says in a very somber voice, mom took a bad fall this afternoon. I can't explain the pit that hit my stomach at that very instant. This is something i have been afraid that was going to happen and mom has osteoporosis, which makes falls all the more dangerous. I asked how bad was it, and he said, the ambulance just left with her, it wasn't good. He said i heard a pop, so i am pretty sure that her leg/hip is broken, and her wrist is also hurt, but don't know how bad. So needless to say, all i wanted to do is get out of walmart and start for home. All the excitement of going home was gone, and in its place was anxiety of how bad is this. Brooke and I left as soon as possible and finally got to mom's house about 11:30 and by that time Warren was home from the hospital with some updates. He said mom had broken her femur bone, which is the biggest bone in the body and can also be a dangerous one to break, you can bleed to death with a break of a femur bone. But for luck warren was right there when she fell, so she was in the ambulance within 15 minutes of her fall. The next day we all went down to Bloomington where she was hospitalized and now waiting for surgery. We found out her surgery would not be until 4:30 that afternoon. They did have her pretty stabilized, so the pain was manageable. She ended up being in surgery 4 in a half hours. They put a rod in her leg to stabilizes her femur bone, which will stay in there for the rest of her life. Her wrist was shattered, so they had to put external pins (4) in it, which is I guess rare for the arm. The nurses on her floor were scared to change the bandages the next day, so they went and got a long term nurse, and she said she never seen this in an arm, but had seen it in an ankle. She was in the hospital 4 days, then went to Fair View Haven, which is a nursing home for rehabilitation. Seven weeks later she is still there, but recovering nicely. Yesterday they took the pins out, but much physical therapy will be needed on her wrist, and she is now walking with about 50% weight on her leg. I had to think when mom got up that morning, she had all kinds of plans for the day. All kinds of fun things for her and warren, steph and the girls to do. Never did she think that she would not be sleeping in her bed that night, and not even for that night, but many, many nights to come. Her life changed in an instant. We never know God's plans for us on any given day, we can only pray He will give us the Grace to get through them. I  have to say God has answered our many prayers, He has given mom the spirit of.. I will get through this...there has been alot of pain in the healing of all the breaks and now the Physical therapy and occupational therapy, but not once have i ever heard her say, I can't do this or I am tired of all this pain. I do believe God gives us trials to strengthen us and develop us to be more like Him, but He never, not even for a moment leaves our side. She has been an inspiration to me as I have talked with her on the phone and visited many hours with her at the nursing home. I have treasured many memories that I have tucked away in my heart that I will have forever.

Now on to why i titled this 4wheeler. We decided to sell taylor's 4wheeler, yes the very one that he had his accident with. It carries so many memories, some good and of course some that are right down tragic. It has been sitting out in our shed for the last three years, occasionally Spenc would get it out and ride it, once in a great while one of tay's friends would come over and want to drive it, but mostly it just sat there as a reminder. Yes, a reminder of what, the good times, or the terrible times. I guess it had some of both. I remember so many times tay out on the drive so busy cleaning it up and i would go out and talk with him. But on other days, i can just stand and stare at it with the thought running through my mind, this is the very last thing Taylor touched here on this earth. I can so easily see him in my  mind racing around our yard, even doing some jumps in the back yard. It made a lot of noise, and that is just what he loved, the more noise the better in his mind. i can remember on summer days when I would have the windows open, and he drove by, I could not even hear anyone who might be talking. Now, one of Taylor's good friends asks if we would ever sell taylor's 4wheeler. I asked everyone how they felt, and at first some were not sure they wanted to do that, and I agree it does feel like everytime we sell something big of Taylor's we are "losing" another part of him. But we all decided that if we are going to sell it, it would feel the best to be going to one of his friends. So, we decided to sell it. When this friend came over and we pulled it out of the shed for him to see it again, we all just stood there staring, all lost in our own thoughts of the memories this 4wheeler brought back. After a few minutes this kid said, "when I use to  ask taylor if i could drive his 4wheeler, he would always say no, you might wreck it", we all had to smile alittle, because we could just see tay saying that. Then this kid says something that touched my heart, he said "I want you to know, every time I ride this, I will think of taylor and I know he will ride with me". We took taylor's racing stickers off and kept them. The night came when he and a friend came to pick up the 4wheeler, i just watched as they loaded it into his pick-up..i remembered so many times when taylor would do the exact same thing before taking it somewhere. This kid even reminded me of Taylor, his build is the same, his mannerism is the same. He gave me a hug when he was getting ready to leave and said anytime we wanted to see it again, or if spenc wanted to drive it, just let him know and he will bring it over. I just stood there and watched as they drove down the lane with taylor's 4wheeler all strapped in the back, it felt like a little piece of me went with them. It was a very sad moment. I was once again thinking of all the losses and how much i missed taylor. Our God is always right beside us and does provide for every need. A couple of days later, i was emailing another one of his friends, saying I have not seen you in a while and was just wondering what has God been doing in your life. It was sorta neat, i had not thought about this girl in a while, and God just brought her to mind and said get in touch with her. I really thought God wanted me to talk with her to perhaps encourage her, because her mom had told me some time before that she was struggling with her relationship with God. God's ways are almost always do different from ours. That was not at all what God had planned...yes, he wanted me to contact her, but it was for her to encourage me. It was for God to talk to me through her. I was telling her how selling the 4wheeler was a very sad moment for me, and i was missing Taylor alot, i was having a hard time letting go of another big thing of Taylor's, in fact it was something he truly loved. She wrote back and said, 

• Deb, yes Tay's fourwheeler was the last physical thing he touched..... but more importantly he touched so many lives here on earth. I like to think of it as a ripple effect.... starting with him and expanding out through everyone that he impacted.... for example tay - me- and now Justin..... I often get asked Wat does the sticker on my car mean 614? And who is Taylor Gasser? It's the starting of a new ripple effect everytime..... I tell people Tay's story and your family's testimony..... you can just see how it impacts them.... even for a short while. Tay might not be here physically on earth.... but he is still doing God's work from heaven through everyone he impacted.... I hope you see it too! :) I will defiantly be over soon :)

God came up beside  me to remind me again, tay's accident was no "accident", it was His perfect plan and God has and will continue to use it to bring Glory to His Name. I especially loved how she said tay doing God's work even from Heaven. Yes, there will always be a huge hole in my heart, but that is only here on earth, we will be back together soon, very soon. I continue to pray that God will use Tay's life and death to Glorify His Name.

Spring time

It seems that winter has turned into spring, even though we didn't have much of a winter. I really like spring time. All God's creation is coming to life again. The trees have light green buds on them, the wild flowers are sprouting up, the grass is turning that deep green. As I was out walking in the woods the other day, I just had to take notice of this beauty. God gave us the change of seasons just for our enjoyment. When I was walking in the woods, it seemed that I was all alone, just me and the wild life. I could hear all the birds "talking", I saw a family of deer walking through the woods, many chipmunks. It was in the "cool" of the day, just like when God would come and talk to Adam in the Garden of Eden. It was so extemely peaceful, I could almost feel God walking with me, and sometimes I can almost "hear" His voice talking with me. I had to think, this is just a little piece of Heaven here on earth. I am so looking forward to the "real" thing someday
We just passed another birthday for Taylor. He would have been 23 on the 1st of April. He would have been growing from a boy into a young adult. I often wonder just what he would  be doing, would he be dating, maybe even perhaps thinking about getting married. The thought even crossed my mind, do they celebrate birthdays in Heaven, then decided most likely not..there is no measure of time there. After that first year when we celebrated his 21st birthday with all his friends, we decided to keep his birthday mostly a personal/family thing. It is always a hard time..time filled with memories of the day he was born until the day of his accident. I got some balloons to let off, and several birthday banners, one to put out at the cemetery and one at the site. As I took the banner and balloon out to the site, I was very touched to see that some of his friends had already been there. In fact, they had put some time and effort into the site. Some of his friends had taken a bunch of rocks and built up the place where they had placed the  cross. Over the last several years, the water had started to wash part of it away, but they did not want it to all disappear, so they built a wall of rocks to protect it. They have taken the time and fixed it all up, they tied a balloon saying happy birthday, put in some of Taylor's favorite things, like a little tractor, flowers, and an angel. As I stood there looking at it, it really just touched my heart to know, Taylor touched their hearts so deeply, even years later they remember his birthday. Spencer had worn a T-shirt to Wayne College that has Yamaha on the front (taylor's favorite name) and "in loving memory of Taylor Gasser" on the back. As Spenc was walking out of class, this guy probably in his 30's came up to Spenc and says "Do you know Taylor?" Spenc says, "Yes, he was my brother, did you know him?".  This guys says, "well, I really did not know him personally, but I heard about him. He continued and said, I was working in my house that I just bought that was right beside where the accident happened that night."  I thought it was rather amazing that this man, remembered Taylor's name after almost three years. Yes, you would probably remember that "some kid" got killed on his fourwheeler on a hot summer night, but to remember his name...it had to have made a mark in his memory.
This was a rather hard week or two, his birthday, then we also sold his "danger" ranger. We sold his truck. If that truck could talk, it would probably be able to tell stories for a week straight. I just heard a few from his friends that would come to visit us. They all brought a smile to our faces. Even though Taylor acted like he hated this truck, way too small for him to "burn" any rubber. He often said to me, he thinks his truck is a one wheel drive, it goes so slow. We took lots of pictures of this truck, but i am sure we will never forget it. I can't tell you how many times this truck has hit the ditch, even though tay acted like it had no power, he seemed to have a hard time keeping it on the road. Jeff took it to  the Kidron auction and sold it. Jeff took videos of the auctioneer selling it. Yes, it did bring a tear to  my eye watching it sell and spenc then handing the keys to the buyer.
I must have forgotten to post this entry, because when i came back to this page i seen it was not posted, so it is alittle behind .