It’s never mundane

I’m a mom. I’m “that mom”. There isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not snapping countless pics of my children. Forever frozen in time the beauty and chaos of a tantrum or the pure joy in a victory over a milestone. Until last year, I never realized how truly precious a seemingly mundane picture would turn out to be. The pictures posted here mean even more to me than just your average love of having all of your children together in one photo. The day after I captured these photos was one of those days which changed the future forever. A day that revealed a good, good father. The following day, we were all together swimming, laughing, having some good food with great friends, and sharing in love and conversation. It kills me to say that at one point during conversation I said, “I really wish that I could see all of my children, but I’m sure they are fine.” KILLS ME! They were not all fine. On the flip side, if I had to do it all over I would still trust that they were safe. Sitting among friends, mid bite I heard my oldest yell out, “Jack’s drowning!!” The pool was locked and even hard to open the latch as an adult. So I think we all felt as if this was a poorly played joke. We all looked up and then again at each other, and he repeated it again even  more frantically. As a community we were synchronized in our standing at full attention. As we race up to the pool we can see that it was in fact not Jack, but Josh. An angel named Kurt found him and pulled him out. His tiny body lay lifeless on the deck. He was cold, blue, motionless and his eyes were fixed and open. No heartbeat. He wasn’t breathing. Thankfully, one of our friends, an angel named Lisa, trained in CPR hurried to asses the situation while people were screaming, “call 911” My husband began to pray loudly over him. She worked on him, and she worked on him, and OMG - she worked on him. With each compression more and more water came out. Out of his nose. Out of his mouth. Until finally he started throwing up and had some shallow labored breathing. It was such a blurry, fierce, whirlwind of emotions it could only have been miraculous, supernatural. When the ambulance arrived, I carried him down to meet them. He felt cold and though I was holding him, he felt missing. They cut off his clothes and began to asses him. They kept reassuring me that any attempt at breathing was a good sign, but in his eyes I could see “he” wasn’t yet there. As a mother you know.  We must have teleported to Children’s hospital because I can’t remember the ride. The only part I remember was that I was shoeless and they were unable to get a blood pressure on him. The situation looked grim even with the eyes of faith. 

All the top trauma docs were there waiting for us. I stood in the corner watching and waiting. Watching and waiting. “Where are you Josh!!?” I’m waiting for that sign, waiting for that absolution I knew would come in my heart to manifest. They put forced air on him and when they attempted to put the leads on for the heart monitor, I heard him scream, “I don’t want any stickers on me!!!” I raised my hands and shouted, “YES”, because I knew at that moment my boy was in there. I’m sure that was a very out of place reaction. His first chest X-ray, within moments of arrival, showed marked damage, cloudiness, and water infiltration. He had a fever of 106. They said he would develop pneumonitis. I rebuked that! We spent all night in the icu with him on a cpap. That he fought to rip out every second. So, my husband and I took turns holding him during the night that seemed to not want to break to day. Scary, crazy, insane. I rocked and nursed him and kept telling him he was safe. They took an additional chest X-ray in the morning which was miraculously unremarkable. It wasn’t even 24 hours after the near drowning, as they call it, and Josh literally ran out of the hospital. It wasn’t a near drowning. We know what we saw. I saw him dead. Everyone who was there saw him dead. Mercy and grace brought him back to us. “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord... You are a prophet to the nations... you will live and not die and declare the works of the Lord forever.” I will never look at these pictures the same again. They say 24 hours can change everything. Every breath changes everything. It’s a moment, in an instant, that can change everything. I witnessed my son rise from the dead. You can’t deny God when you’ve seen what we’ve seen.