A Phone Story

Earlier today, I got out of the car at the station to fill it up with gas. Fifteen minutes later, I got back in the car and burst into tears. It is strange how things happen...

Our car is in the shop, so we're borrowing Eric's car (thank you!!) for a few days. I am hopeful that our car will be ready tomorrow, so I went to the gas station today so I could return the car full. Just as I was finished setting up the automatic pumping, I heard a woman yell, "Does anyone have a cell phone? Call 911!"

Now it's strange, because on the way to the gas station I had dialed #646 so I could get a text message from Verizon about how many minutes I have left. I've been getting messages from them telling me I've used 75%, now 90%, and I've been worried about going over. We just had to buy a new washer, our car is in the body shop (Ian got into a little accident on the way to his parents over Thanksgiving), we have to trim our tree because it's a hazard to our neighbors garage, we're still paying on Jonah's physical therapy, PLUS it's December, which on top of having Christmas in the month also has my birthday and Ruthie's. Needless to say, it was already going to be an expensive month and I didn't want to add to that with a phone bill through the roof. But 13 minutes? My allotment doesn't start over until Friday, which is still four days away! How was I going to make it? So I'm fretting about this as I'm putting the gas pump in the car and I hear the woman cry out. Naturally, I rush over to my purse and pull out my phone and dial 911. Then I rush over to her car to see what the situation is, since 911 is asking me what kind of help I need.

In the car, I could see her son, a 4 year old boy, seizing. While I was on the phone explaining our location and what was happening, he stopped seizing but he also started having a hard time breathing. I watched in panic as the mother's fears escalated as she kept checking him for breath. She grabbed the phone from me and started asking what she should do. I can hear her explain they had just been released from the hospital that morning; he'd had a seizure last night and another one earlier that morning.

I stood by, helpless, as she kept saying into the phone, "He's usually responsive but I'm not getting anything from him." And then she would stroke her boy's face and try to rouse him. They told her to lay him down, so I helped her take him out of his car seat and lay him down. But this time, we could hear sirens coming, as the fire engine pulled into the gas station. They immediately started treating him and put him in an ambulance to drive away. Still shaking, I asked the woman if she had anyone else she needed to call. She called out some numbers to me and had me call what turned out to be her sister. I explained the situation to her sister and then she talked to her for a while. The she gave the phone back to the fireman, and jumped in her car to follow the ambulance. (Don't worry, he returned it to me.)

I got back into my car, and promptly burst into tears (which then meant that everyone in the car was crying since my kids couldn't figure out why we were staying so long at the gas station). I cried for a good five minutes, praying for that boy and his mother.

I sit here now, thinking about why this situation has so profoundly affected me. For one, I am a mama, and I can only imagine the terror of seeing your child seize and struggle for breath. As that mama grew more and more frantic, my own emotions followed along with her. Secondly, we've had a sad, sad loss in our own family in recent weeks and my grief stricken heart is still tender with the pain of seeing people I love mourn. And finally, I am awakened in my soul to the absolute ridiculousness of my worry about cell phone minutes and all the other minuscule things I worry about as other mamas follow ambulances to hospitals. In moments like this, and the many from last week, when I see so clearly that the world is broken and people are hurting that I cry out, "Come, Lord Jesus. Come."