Against the tide

How do you explain the unthinkable?

Posted by: Rhonda Robinson

Friday, June 6, 2008 9:03 AM

It didn't come in the middle of the night. That's how we always imagine it, the shrill sound of a phone piercing the night. And an unfamiliar distant voice uttering those words, "There's been an accident."

It didn't happen that way. But it happened nonetheless.

My phone call came from one of my best friends last Tuesday evening. My husband and I were in Springfield with our daughter, who had just undergone surgery on her leg. It had been a long day in the waiting room, and just before seven, we were told we could go upstairs into her room and help her settle in for the night.

The warning shot was fired in the elevator; the first phone call.

"Do you know where the boys are?" Scott Douglas asked.

I explained I had been with Hannah here in Springfield all day, but I knew they had an impromptu basketball practice at the Arthur Christian School.

Scott sounded more confused than concerned, and explained that Brian Lowery was looking for the boys.

As we entered my daughter's hospital room, the phone rang again. This time the caller ID said "Brian Lowry."

When I answered the phone, it was his wife, one of my closest friends, Cristal, who had to say those awful words out loud, "Oh, Rhonda, there's been an accident."

All she knew was it was that it was bad, and one boy was air lifted to Carle. I knew my son Tom was driving, but I had no idea who she said was in the car. My heart, mind, and hearing all but stopped at the words "air lifted."

The trip home through the wind, rain, hail and tornados was spent with both of us on the phone frantically trying to find where the boys had been taken. We were told each boy had been taken to different hospitals. But none of the parents knew whose son was where. Everyone scattered to hospitals looking for our boys, while we sped home calling one emergency room after another, our children, and the other parents.

Cristal's words slowly dawned on me, and I realized who she said were the four boys: My Tom, Schuyler and Sam Binion, and my youngest son Dan.

As we pulled onto the interstate; an unknown caller appeared on my phone. It was the Chaplin at St. Mary's Hospital; he had been assigned to Tom. He said he was "responsive" but we needed to come quick. But where is Dan? No one could tell us.

By the time we pulled into St. Mary's Hospital, all the boys had been located-except Dan.

In a small room, behind closed doors, two strangers doing their best to be kind, said to us the most horrible words I have ever heard, "Dan died at the scene."

When God took our precious son, Elijah Daniel, it ripped a whole in the fabric of our family that we can never repair, or replace. The edges of the whole are still sharp and unbelievably painful.

We are surrounded by a community that has wrapped its arms around us and lifted us up in prayer in a way that we could never have imagined.

The four boys are lifelong friends that are as close as brothers. Both families feel as if all four boys are our own.

To help in the healing process friends have set up a blog. You are invited to visit it often. It is http://www.rhondasjournal.blogspot.com

If you will, excuse me for a little while, as I withdraw into the arms of my Savior, friends and family.

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