Finding the Good...

This week I’ve lacked in posting due to a significant and tragic event that has forever changed my life.  Last Saturday, February 4th, I was driving my brother and cousin home from grocery shopping.  It was around 4:15pm, so the sun was timidly starting to fade to gold and the skylight was dropping.  The entire world seemed to be slowly progressing into nighttime.

We were driving on a rural road when I could see in my rearview as police were rushing up the street, their sirens blazing, followed by several firetrucks and ambulances.  Hastily, I pulled out of the way and let them pass, but the road was empty of almost all people, and they were heading in the same direction.  I silently vowed that no matter my curiosity, I wouldn’t follow them.  

I started out directly behind the last police officer, and gained speed behind them.  We rushed past homes and through the streets.  We began to approach the cutoff that leads to my ward boundaries and my home.  I planned on turning into my street and watching the police drive on, but to my surprise, they took the same direction toward my home.  

Immediately I felt prompted to follow—any previous thoughts against it were forgotten.  I hastily turned onto my street and passed my home, following the cops and ambulances as we climbed higher and higher into my ward boundaries.  Fear and heartache began to build up—this is my ward.  These people are my stronghold. We really are all a family, each of us neighbors.  The worry that thronged within me seemed to only get stronger and harder and more painful to bear.

I could see from a distance now where the accident was.  There were very few cars lined up, but instead police officers, two firetrucks, and two ambulances.  It didn’t seem to be a car accident, which only made me more nervous as I watched from a distance the mere frantic group of people, the scads of firemen and policemen running about.  I took a more remote, back road over to the opposite side of the accident and parked, frantically running out to find many members of my ward huddled in the driveway of a more recent family who I didn’t yet know well.  Only five to ten feet from the close group of people laid a little baby girl, her beautiful white-blond hair strewn around her white face, and blood dripping from her small mouth.  

There were two moments for me then.  Two very distinctive “moments” that I will never forget.  For the first moment, I saw my baby sister, Isabel.  My sweet, two-year-old sister Isabel lying on the ground.  Baby Isabel, the one who dances for our family, and laughs her head off, and kisses us when we’re crying, and sings to us every night.  My innocent, beautiful baby sister was lying on the ground, covered in blood, as ambulances and firemen and police officers swarmed her, trying hard to keep her little heart beating.  

And then I saw an angel.  I saw a beautiful, innocent angel sleeping on the ground.  Her white hair was in ringlets, and her white cheeks were flushed pink.  She was beautiful, and she seemed to glow with health and bloom.  She was too good for this life, I thought.  That moment was comforting, and gentle, and kept me at peace.  But this angel wasn’t there yet—she was just asleep.  And true as it was, she was unconscious.  A helicopter landed nearly twenty yards from me and I watched as her helpless little body was lifted and sailed away.  

The image became implanted into my brain.  All night, I cried for her and for her family, who reminded me so much of my own.  They were beautiful and selfless and happy, and now their sweet baby girl was in the hospital, dying.  The following day, Sunday, was the humbling day for me.

I woke up with no drive to attend church.  I had no feelings inside of me that said, “Ah, church, yes.”  Having 8:00am church usually restricts that on a weekly basis anyway, but it was different on February 5, 2012.  I slept in—I didn’t attend my first two hours, but nearing the third, I began to feel the emotional upheaval subside and I heard a voice tell me to go to church.  You cannot disregard those voices.

I went to Young Women’s.  The moment I walked in, I was stopped by the mother of one of my friends, who asked me about the event that went on the night before.  With my heart aching, I told her.  I explained everything, and the spiritual outpour fell from me like a heavy weight.  I could no longer carry this burden.  Following my conversation with her, I went to my classroom to find my next-door neighbor, who is like a second mother to me, teaching a lesson on Happiness and Joy.  Despite the upheaval and terror that struck us all—and each person cried throughout the lesson for the pain of possibly losing little baby Elle—we were blessed.  We felt at peace.  My previous Mia Maid leader leaned into me and said, handing me tissues and holding my hand tightly, “Your smile has always lit up my classroom.  Each time I taught, I’d look at you, for the privilege of feeling so much better and having the confidence to keep teaching, and to teach by the Spirit.”

…..I’ll conclude my story in the second part.  I just want to give people incentive to read both instead of admiring a post from a distance and deciding it’s too long.