I was sitting in my office with a client on Monday when my phone vibrated. I ignored the first notification, but seconds later it vibrated again. And again. And again. I tried to be subtle as I glanced down and saw that my father had called twice, then my sister-in-law, then my brother.

I’ve never had to interrupt a client mid-session and paused as my brain scrambled to figure out what I should do. I was trying to listen to what my client was sharing, but my thoughts were busy trying to figure out what would cause my family to be reaching out in such a flurry.

AND where was Mymom?

I looked at the clock and realized that the session was nearing the 50-minute mark. I’m not sure if my clients realize that our sessions are only 50 minutes because I tend to allow them to linger until the buzzer rings indicating my next client has arrived. But, Monday at 12:49 I closed my folder and stood up, “I’m afraid that our time is up for today. We will need to finish this up next week”.

I texted my next client to say I may be late for our session and started reaching out to family. My dad didn’t answer. My mom didn’t answer. Then I saw a message from my dad on The Cappello Family chat. 

Car accident in cab. Mymom is hurt.

Heading to the hospital. Will keep you posted.

The family calls started as we all tried to piece together what happened.

The short story is that Mymom was in a taxi heading to have lunch with a friend and the taxi plowed into the car in front of them, flying Mymom into the glass partition. She had cuts on her face, broken teeth and neck pain. Monday afternoon was a long one as we all waited for more information. I did finally speak with Mymom around 3 and was relieved when she seemed more focused on reminding me to wear a seatbelt than her injuries.

After seven hours in the ER, Mymom was able to get home. She has many stitches, broken teeth, and a small fracture in a vertebrae – not easy, but we’re all so grateful that it wasn’t worse.

I was speaking with a friend last weekend about the idea that hard experiences SHOULD somehow protect you from other hard experiences happening. That would be fair, right? But life isn’t fair. Nature isn’t fair. Accidents happen.

Always trying to learn from experiences, I’m trying to focus on the good that came out of this accident. Most importantly Mymom is okay, but I’m also reminded of what’s really important. There’s so much we can’t control, but we do have control over treasuring relationships that are important to us. We can control when we might need to wrap up a session a little early. AND we can control always remembering to put on our seatbelt.

So glad you are okay Mymom — we love you!

Love, Jess