YESTERDAY

So here’s what you missed on Glee….

Just kidding. Here’s what happened yesterday.

King, the kids and I were en route to church to help pack more relief goods. As King slowly turned at an intersection full of other cars and tricycles, shortly after exiting our village gate, something slammed into his door hard. King hit the brakes immediately. I heard panic in people’s voices. At that very moment, I covered my eyes and started to cry because it felt like we had run over something. But I caught myself and looked outside. I saw the worried looks on people’s faces. I heard a lady say something about not running to cross the street. To my horror, it was a little girl. She was in tears, down on the ground, holding her bruised leg.

King was trying to talk to her and help her. She kept insisting that she was okay and that she didn’t want to go to the hospital. She was clearly hurt. We didn’t want to leave her. The lady who we thought was her mother, was not. Apparently, the six-year-old girl, Angel, was alone. She was just following the lady, her sister and their kids. They had come from school. They were dismissed early and she decided to leave school without waiting for her dad to get her. When she suddenly ran to cross the street, one of them tried to stop her. That’s when she hit us.

Thank God for those ladies who saw the whole thing and recounted it to me. All the while, I thought we had run over her! But we didn’t. She didn’t run in front of the car. She ran into the left side of our car. King also was certain that Angel only hit his door and fell back.

The poor girl was scared, and before King could convince her to come with us, a neighbor of theirs passed by and saw her. The lady neighbor got off the motorcycle to help her, and they eventually rode our car. The male neighbor went back to fetch Angel’s mom. We were already about to go to the hospital, but a barangay official who happened to be there told us we needed to go through due process first. He didn’t want us to go yet. Go figure.

Angel kept crying. She was more concerned about her mom getting mad though than about her pain. I told her that it didn’t matter if her mom got mad, what mattered was that she got checked and pronounced okay by a doctor. By the time other people told us to go ahead and have the girl treated since a neighbor was with her anyway, around ten minutes later, the mom came.

I had already anticipated an angry mother. But hearing the way she spoke when she arrived, without even hearing the whole story yet, irked me. Nonetheless, I knew it best to stay quiet as she entered our car. I told the girls to not say a word, but I was actually talking to myself haha. Maybe seeing that we had kids with us too, and that we were willing to take care of her daughter, plus after her kind-hearted neighbor sort of explained what happened, she wasn’t so aggressive anymore.

We took them to a clinic that they preferred to go to. King told me over the phone as the girls and I were waiting in the car, that Angel told the doctor what really happened while her mom was listening. I was relieved. Even though it was technically not our fault and we knew we were innocent, things could have gone way worse than it did. I was all the more relieved when he told me that apart from a sprained ankle and some cuts and bruises, Angel is fine. The doctor said no bones are fractured, and the mom called just this morning to tell us that the x-ray confirmed it. Thank God!

The mom and I were able to talk as we took them home. Nothing was explained to her when she was picked up. All she knew was there had been an accident. I totally get what an emotional roller coaster ride that was for her! Angel is their only child, which is why she is never left alone. She has a tricycle service that brings her to and from school. Her dad also picks her up with the service. Her usual dismissal is at 5PM but she was dismissed at 2PM yesterday, which the parents knew nothing about. Her mom was still perplexed as to why she walked home alone, but this probably explains it. I am also perplexed as to why the school let her leave without an adult or without informing the parents first.

But anyway, it was good to see Angel at peace in the arms of her mom. It was good to see a smile and hear grateful words from the mom’s lips. It was heartbreaking to know that we had a part in Angel getting hurt, but we are extremely grateful that nothing worse happened. We are extremely grateful for the peaceful goodbye.

Despite trouble, the Lord indeed proves faithful. 🙂