sorrow and gratitude

this morning 3 cabell midland high school boys were killed when their car crossed the center line on a 2-lane road and ran into school bus 682 head-on. 2 died at the scene, 1 died at the hospital. 2 of these boys were brothers. so much grief. and for so many. moms. dads. family. friends and classmates. the community. the reality of sending your boys to school in the morning and that afternoon be making their funeral arrangements is difficult to fathom. my boys came home from school this afternoon. i'm not sure i've ever been so glad and so grateful to see their sweet faces, to hear their voices, to see their smiles, to hear them argue, to feel their hugs and kisses. tragedy, even one that doesn't directly affect the day to day of your own life, has a way of throwing things promptly into perspective. i think that, in itself, is a tragedy. we should be constantly living with our priorities in line. but we are not. until something like this does it for us.

school bus 682's driver is shawn gibson. he's max's bus driver. that is max's bus. and from our experience with shawn, he is a wonderful young man. earlier this year he defused what could have been a horrible experience for a group of students on an out of town trip - a man with a weapon boarded the school bus while shawn was on it and the students were not. shawn managed the situation and no one was harmed. today he kept a bus full of students safe during a horrific accident and it's aftermath. he's had quite a year. please pray for him when you pray for the loved ones of those 3 young men. blake and luke and max (and their mom and dad) have been praying for shawn as much as for the grieving families.

our boys were quiet when they got home from school today. max's first words were "shawn had a wreck", and he was so relieved to know that shawn was ok, at least physically...blake and luke both had a lot to say about how the day was at school in light of the accident and news of the deaths of these boys. they knew one of the boys. luke said he was afraid when he heard that it was bus 682 because he knew it was max's bus and wasn't sure if max was on it at the time. something beautiful that came of that comment was the smile that took over max's face when he heard his brother say that. max absolutely beamed - he was just beside himself that his brother loves him so. i felt the same way.

Chris Adkins, his brother David Adkins and Robert Sinclair.