Life's Unforgettable Moments

Life is full of moments, we all have them. Some are things like when the US president was assassinated, or the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Those moments that you will never forget where you were and what you were doing at that exact moment. Not all unforgettable moments are joyous occasions, for most people it is the opposite the bad memories are the ones that seem to leave an imprint on your mind and never leave. I think for me it is about half and half, and considering the life I have had that should be a good thing :)

Summer 1976 I was in a car accident. This is my first real childhood memory, I don't recall anything prior to this accident. I was six years old and we were travelling between my Aunt's and my Grandmother's houses. A woman turned onto the highway taking the turn too sharp and hit us head on. Fortunately no one died but it was quite the experience. The car we had borrowed from another uncle was of course written off and both my parents were taken to the hospital. I don't recall the extent of their injuries but I know my mother had many broken bones. This accident is not only my first childhood memory but will contribute to another very memorable moment.

9 February 1979 was the next memorable moment in my life. My uncle had moved to Alberta the previous fall and told my father that due to the oil boom in Alberta it would be easy for my dad to get a good job, so my family sold most of our stuff and packed up the rest, moving across the country in look for work. We arrived the day before I turned 9 and my life changed forever, that was the end of the world as I knew it and my life changed forever.

11 August 1989 was the next memorable moment of my life. I was living in Jasper (the tourist trap town) working and had no phone. My mother had called my at the time best friend to let her know I needed to call home right away. I never got this message until about 8pm....my mother called around 2pm. Fortunately I didn't have access to a radio or television :) Anyway I went and called my mother and got the worst news I had ever heard in my life. There had been a terrible accident, a woman with a van load of children ran a stop sign and T-boned a vehicle carrying members of my family. I blogged the whole story here. This accident killed my 19 year old sister in law, her 9 year old sister, her mother and step father. The only person still alive in that vehicle was my 6 month old nephew. The world stopped moving at that moment and never rotated the same way again.

14 December 1989 at the age of 19 I got married for the first time. I married my high school sweetheart thousands of miles away from home. It was just the two of us with two other couples and proof of the state of my life at the time, they were both friends of his. Both friends from his job or basic training. I didn't really know one of the wives and the other and I never really became friends as I wasn't impressed with her and the way she lived her life. Anyway the morning of my wedding my kitten died, we went to the wedding and while in saying our "I do's" a blizzard hit. It was not the world's best day...something told me that perhaps I shouldn't have been getting married that day. The deal we had was that in a couple of years when we had saved up enough money we would have a big family wedding and of course we were divorced before that happened.

23 August 1990 was a big day. According to the doctors I was pregnant before I got married, according to me I was pregnant two days after my wedding...but whatever 9 months later we had our first child. We were both 20 years old, thousands of miles away from home and had no idea what we were doing. I spent one whole month in the hospital because I had what they called toxemia at the time (I know it has a different name now). Because my blood pressure was so high I was induced as they didn't like to allow babies in this situation go full term as it was too dangerous. On August 22, 1990 I was moved from the local hospital to the big town hospital about 20 minutes away. I would start my induction the next day. At 10 am the drip began and after a whole day of serious pain, and every drug they could give me I gave birth to an 8lb 7.5oz beautiful baby boy. We named him Nathan Corey Allen. Just after they took him away I tried to call my mother and passed out on the table, of course they took the phone away and hung up on my mother, the poor woman had no idea what was going on. I had lost so much blood I went into shock...I never actually knew what the problem was until I was pregnant with my second child 4 years later.

20 April 1994 was the birth of my baby girl. Three years after my first child I decided that I wanted another child, my marriage was failing and it might not have been the smartest choice it was what I wanted and I am one of those people that does what I want and think about it later :( Anyway on the 19th of April 1994 I went to the doctor and after his examination he informed me that I would probably go into labour in the middle of the night. At 5:30 the next morning I woke having to pee real bad...and my first contraction started. Since my first child wasn't a totally natural child birth I had no idea what true contractions felt like, but 5 minutes later the next one came. I told Christopher it was time, he called the hospital and told them and they told him to take his time. He jumped in the shower and by the time he jumped out my contractions were 1 minute apart. We dropped off our oldest at a friends and headed to the hospital almost 45 minutes away...we barely made it. Christopher almost pulled into the small town hospital that no longer delivered babies to prevent her being born in the car...turns out my doctor was headed to that hospital and had to be called back anyway. He barely made it in time to catch the baby and at 8:04 my beautiful baby girl was born. 10lbs 1/2oz. The biggest thing of the day was deciding on her name :) Check here for the whole story. We called her Jenifer Ariel Faith.

9 August 1996 after 6 1/2 years of marriage life changed. I remember the moment of going into the registries building and signing the papers that ended my marriage. I remember the day I got on the bus to head back to Calgary, leaving my children crying with their father (another long story I might blog about someday). I remember the day I arrived in Calgary, mother's day 11 May 1996. My parents picked me up from the bus depot and took me to meet my two month old baby niece. All I could do was cry, not only was my marriage over but I arrived to start my new life on Mother's day without my children...mother's day was a day I hated for many years to come. In the end of July 1996 my divorce certificate arrived in the mail stating that on 9 Aug 96 my marriage was over. Every year I think about that on that day...even though I am remarried to that man :)

9 November 2002 left a lasting impression like no other it was the day my father died. I will blog in more detail about this one day but for now here is the story. My father and brother were coming into town to help me move some furniture, my brother hit a patch of black ice while driving in and lost control of his truck. I was sitting at my ex's apartment wondering why it was taking so long. Then I decided to call my brother's wife, we were on the phone when I heard sirens and I just knew. I said to her "Stacey something is wrong." She called her husband and couldn't get more out of him than there was an accident and come to the hospital. I knew right then it couldn't be good. I got to the hospital first and I knew my father was gone. Later we heard the whole story and the bad news that my father had not put on his seatbelt and had been thrown from the window and when the vehicle came to rest it was on top of him. Remember back to the first unforgettable memory. My father was wearing his seat belt in that crash and they told him that it caused most of his injuries so from then on he stopped wearing it...if he had wore it that day it would have saved his life :(

1 May 2004 the birth of my last child. My life continued in a downward spiral after the death of my father. And although I have never journaled the details of the situation surrounding my last pregnancy (not sure if I can yet) I found myself pregnant the summer after my father's passing. I was 33 years old and really not sure if I wanted another baby. For many years since my last child I had tried to get pregnant, I think I wanted the baby to fill the void left by the loss of my first two than actually wanting a baby but anyway when I found out I was pregnant I tried to ignore it you know hoping it would go away. But on 1 May 04 I went into labour...I found it humorous that I said I didn't care what day he was born as long as it wasn't May and he came out on the first, shows how stubborn he is. I had my first contraction at 7:30 and at 10:01 he was born. He was coming out the wrong way, his face was turned, they had to reach in and turn his face. The cord was wrapped around his neck. He wasn't breathing and was totally purple...you can kind of see the bruises on his face in this picture. He was fine and is now an adorable bundle of energy.

21 July 2007 was the day I got married for the second time. In January 2005 my ex-husband and I rekindled our relationship and two months later we were living together with our four children. We had a big wedding like we had talked about the first time, but it was bigger than we had wanted (another long story I might blog sometime). It was a small affair with less than 50 people at it, in a beautiful church in the town my husband grew up in. My dress was amazing although it kept falling down :( and the minister was awesome. There are many things if I could do it over again I would have done but what's done is done. This wedding meant so much more to me than the first one I was 37 years old verses 19 at the first one and things were just very different.

As I said there are many more moments in my life but these are the 10 that the dates stick out in my mind ones that I will never forget.