Shark Attack!

Last week, a young friend of mine, an old student and the daughter of a good friend was savagely attacked by a shark. She had just returned home from a summer job at her college and was relaxing and swimming with her sister from a raft just beyond her family's dock in Boca Ciega Bay. It seems that the two of them, Jenna and her big sister Laura, were dangling their legs off the raft, when suddenly what must have been a large bull shark attacked Jenna's leg. She screamed and Laura somehow managed to drag her onto the raft and then onto the dock and apply pressure to staunch the copiously bleeding wounds, called 911 and the neighbors, and calmed her little sister on the way to the hospital.

It looked quite grim when I heard about it a few hours later. Would she lose her leg? Did she need blood? What about Laura? How must she feel? I went to bed and dreamed about sharks. As the days passed I heard constant updates on Jenna's progress. More than six hundred stitches up her entire leg, and almost a week in the hospital, but we know now, she'll be fine, and can even go back to college in a month. For all her life she'll have that thin scar line from ankle to thigh. And what a tale she'll have to tell her children and grandchildren.

This affected me so much on many levels. First, this family has always seemed so golden to me; nothing bad could ever happen to them. I have taught all three siblings and they were among my favorite students. The connection to each other this family had and has is extraordinary. I love this family! They have always cared so much about each other, seeing each child as an individual, but they were never 'helicopter' parents and let their kids follow their stars. So all three kids went far away to college. These parents truly gave their kids wings to fly.

And next, how can we as parents ever protect our children from the unexpected? What horror it must be to have your college student gunned down by a maniac? Or the always dreaded automobile accident? Or.. a shark attack?

When my own kids, who have fledged now, come back to visit, I am incredibly thankful to have them here. Count them; one, two, three. You've let them go, but that incredible parental love is always anxious. We still love to have them HERE, under our roof. But we know we can't control a thing.

So, this picture is of quilt I made this week, commemorating the shark attack. I will give it to this family and I hope they will leave it around their house for the kids to wrap up in, and maybe remember this amazing experience in which everyone - the sisters, the brother, Mom and Dad, many friends-showed the love of an amazing family.