The two times my naive daughter almost died.

"Do you want to go walk along the river with me?" was my question to Molly one snowy day up in the mountains while Brooke and Jack went skiing. As the years have all blended together in my motherhood fog, I would venture to guess that Molly was 10 or 11 years old? Or heck, maybe 12 or 13? All I know is that she suddenly proved her strength and scared me into realizing that I was not the one in charge anymore.

We put on our hats, gloves and ski pants to walk the 1/2 mile into Frisco from the house. It had just snowed a ton which made for a beautiful hike along the trail that parallels the icy river. The end prize was to be a steamy hot chocolate in town. One section of the trail passes a little playground that we'd always stop to enjoy. Today, however, was a much different story.

As the trail dipped down by the river, Molly ran off the path and started trying to walk out onto the ice. Totally freaked me out as she had never tried that before. I said "No Molly, the ice is thin and you can't walk across it"(which would have been obvious to any of you as you could see the river rushing under and there were many open spots too). She did not listen and continued to try and step onto the river. I pulled her back and she fought me tooth and nail. We ended up toppling over and wrestling in the snow bank as she tried to pull away from me to dive into that frigid, rushing water. It was opposite any behavior I had ever seen in her as she is normally so compliant. And now she was bigger and stronger and I was really having to fight to keep her safe. I can only imagine what the people were thinking who might have been sitting in the their living room watching what was going on on the embankment across from them. I was wanting to scream for help to give me backup support. I was SO scared.

Of course I finally won the match and pulled her back up to the sidewalk. She was not happy. There was no going out for hot chocolate after that and we went straight home. I got her into a bath and then proceeded to lose it crying. The adrenaline rush came through tears as I shared the story with my mother-in-law who was back at the house.


Why did Molly DO that? It was so unlike her.

I repeated the story and my query "Do you want to walk along the river?" and then it hit me! With Molly's auditory precessing disorder she thought that I had said "Do you want to walk on the river?" And obviously she did! I'm not sure Molly has that discernment even now? Another regular auditory processing challenge for her is when someone says "How are you?" and she answers "I am 18 years old".

As you can imagine, we have avoided that route on snowy days ever since. My PTSD doesn't allow for it.

I have had only one other experience where I have literally feared for her life and that was two summers ago when she was 17 years old. We were staying at my friend Jenny's Wrightsville Beach, NC house. Between her house and the boat dock area there is a 2 lane road where traffic is moving at a pretty fast clip (30 mph?). Jenny hated that when her kids were little as she was always on high alert as they crossed the street. Now that her kids are big and know better, there isn't as much fear. Well, my girl still is terrible about "stop look and listen, before you cross the street, use your eyes, use your ears, and THEN use your feet". We have said this at least 100,000 times in her life and she still sucks at it.

On this day, I had already crossed over to the beachy area where the kids were going to fish and paddle board. I kept watching for Molly when she was going to come out of the house as I knew that she'd need help crossing the street. In hindsight, I should have waited for her. Instead of coming out of the kitchen area and coming down the front stairs where I was watching for her, she surprise came out of the garage between the parked cars and started sprinting across the street to me. Before I knew it, she was half way across the street and a car barely missed her. There was absolutely no effort to look both ways...she just bolted across. She must have a few angels because she did not die that day. But she could have. And I would have witnessed the whole thing and it would have been my fault for not being more diligent. Makes me want to throw up every time I think about it.

Looking from the house to the dock area (and Jack paddle boarding)

Jack taking Molly out for a spin

See that car speeding between us and the house?

The reason that I have shared these stories with you is that I learned this week that  there is something that we can do to address these safety concerns! Hallelujah as what we've been doing for 19 years hasn't worked.  The therapists can write songs specifically for Molly to teach her how to cross streets and not go on icy rivers. Then they take her out into the community to practice. The tune has to be catchier than "stop, look and listen" is all I'm saying. I'll keep you posted.