Mercy.

Two days ago I received some very disturbing - and relieving - news. As you may know, I have two younger brothers who are three-year old twins. Rob is pictured here on the right.

My family had been spending the week at the beach in Florida. One day near the end of the trip, Rob had an accident. He was trapped in a phenomenon known as a spontaneous sand cave-in. An anomaly in the beach sand caused the surface of the beach to collapse when Rob stepped on it, with the surrounding sand filling in the collapsed area, burying Rob alive. Although not well known to the public, more people die this way at the beach than because of sharks. In Rob's case, no one saw the cave-in; my family - only a few feet away - just realized he was gone. He was buried for a full five minutes before anyone realized what had happened. By a miracle, he was found and dug out in time to save his life. Although incredibly traumatic for all involved, there were no injuries, and Rob is doing well.

It is rare to survive a spontaneous sand cave-in - and nearly unheard of to survive when nobody actually witnessed the cave-in. The phenomenon is becoming more well known, and the issue has just recently entered the mainstream media consciousness. Because of this recent interest, the story and a brief interview with my family will be appearing on CBS' The Early Show on Tuesday, July 24 at 7:30 am EST - the segment is about 4 minutes long and contains other people's stories/input as well.

I found out about the accident after it happened, and it was still traumatic for me just hearing about it, even knowing he was fine. So far this week, it's been difficult to focus on much else. I cannot imagine the unbelievable horrible experience for my family that was there. A full - and heartwrenching - account is on my step-mom's blog.

Yeah, my step-mom has a blog, and it's much more popular than mine, and it's about knitting. Want to make something of it?