Encounters

Will we ever know the whole story of our lives, as God does?  Probably not, at least not until we face death.  I wonder what that story will look like, how it will read?  Where did a simple encounter impart great wisdom or preparation ...or faith in our lives, my life?  We never really know, do we?  I'm pondering things like this as I step forward with my girl in tow, snuggled tightly against my heart, heading to Bethlehem.  I'm not the only one on my way.  No one wears a sign telling us the direction they're headed.  But I know for sure there are others making the month's long journey through tough terrain.  For sure there are plenty who will spend the month as a festival of sorts, shopping, entertaining, those things so embedded in our culture.  Its not their time, I think.  Not there time to gaze yet upon the bright star leading them to the source of their life.  I hope it will come for everyone, soon.  Sometimes I wish I didn't have this gift of faith as I do ...why can't I just play all the time, ignore the divine, play dumb to the mark of a life in Him.  But I don't really wish that, because there is no real foundation in that, no real joy.
Back to my journey to Bethlehem.   I've wondered who I will meet along the way, if anyone.  I know up ahead is a young expectant mother.  I know her, trust her.  She's the lady who first laid hands on Phoebe when she died.  I know she held her quickly.  I've known this woman for a long time now, Blessed Mother.  Christ's first tabernacle.  She's the one I've asked over and over to step in for me, when my mothering is weak.  Please, please be the mother to my child(ren) I cannot be right now.  And she has always stepped in, all I need do is ask.  I begged her that dreadful day.  I know she wept with me and for me as she held my beautiful girl, my Phoebe, gently in her arms.  So I follow her silhouette up ahead.  She is careful, but certain in her steps, as she cradles the greatest treasure known to man ...Christ within her.  I follow her.
But who else might I meet along the way.  Only God knows, and only God orchestrates the encounters that bring peace, healing, wholeness.  So let me tell you a story about someone I met last night on my journey to
Bethlehem.
It was early evening over eighteen years ago, August 12, 1992.  A beautiful summer night, an August night, early on.  I remember that the day was a magnificent summer day, warm, bright, low humidity.  A day when clothes didn't stick to you, the air was dry and comfortable.  It had been a perfect beach day and we had spent our time there, my husband, two year old son, myself.  It was a night out of a storybook ...for us, but not for everyone ...and as we know now, not for us either. Around 4:30 my firefighter husband headed off to work.  He had the overnight shift ...tomorrow promised another perfect beach day. 
I had put Stephen, our little boy, to bed, listened to the sounds of a ball game across the street, probably watered my flowers.  The phone rang ...no caller ID, no cell phones back then, just the ring, ring.  I answered and it was my husband.   He usually called to check in, say goodnight, but there was something in his voice.  I don't remember his exact words, but I remember his voice and his sorrowful heart.  As I listened  he told me what had happened.  Shortly after arriving to work, milling about the station, a call came in for Engine 3.  It was shift change, there was radio testing to do, trucks to be checked ...all the routine stuff of passing from one crew to the next.  Your whole crew doesn't arrive at exactly the same time, nor are they all relieved at the same time.  So you might have half of the day crew with half the night crew, until everyone has been relieved.  So was the case this summer night ...a calico crew.  The call came in for a child down.  Could be anything, broken arm, bike accident, kids head stuck through a fence.  They hopped on the truck, and as my husband recalls they were there literally in seconds.  Arriving on scene, the wails of a mother, screams of a father told them where to go.  The chain link fence around the property was locked.  Stephen jumped the fence and landed right beside the father as he gave mouth to mouth to his daughter.  He looked up at my husband "am I doing it right?"  "You're perfect, let me help you" and my husband picked up the task for this heartbroken, frightened dad.  Mouth to mouth was no longer the protocol, you needed special equipment to provide air to the victim.  The risk of disease transmission on the rise makes this important, the responder should not risk disease, so they have equipment that provides a barrier, while allowing air into the victim.  But a child?  I know my husband, wasting no time, he breathed life into this girl ... at least tried.  This beautiful, nine year old girl had been electrocuted and the shock had gone right through her heart, killing her instantly.
The girl and her siblings had climbed a tree in their yard.  Her mother came out.  "What are you doing up there, come down, you know we don't want you kids climbing that tree."  "Mommy, look how high up I am."
Twenty five feet in the air, the girl reach for another branch.  Bending, it hit a live wire.  The voltage traveled through the branch, burning her hands, racing through her heart and exiting her foot.  She fell through the tree 25 feet, landing without breaking a bone.  She was dead.  The girl, alive and vibrant just moments ago lay dead beneath the tree she had conquered, the tree that brought her up high enough to touch the sky, making her smile in delight.  She was dead.
I could hear Stephen's voice tremble as he told me, recalling all he had done, they had done.  But mostly, and I remember this still, I heard the mother's screams in my head ...and heart.  Oh, how could she go on, how would she live?  My own boy, just two, lay safely in bed upstairs.  I would never, could never lose him.
There are lots of stories that firefighters, police officers share ...they step into the most intimate, poignant, life changing moments of people's lives.  This was one, and there are two others that remain with me that he's shared with me.  Many others tug at me at the time, but just three I own, became part of me.  But this one, the nine year old girl I've held the closest ...and longest.  Now I know why.
Just a couple of weeks ago we sat in a room with other parents who share their stories of losing a child.  There are no words for this kind of loss.  Some people say it is just one type of cross.  No, it is, by far, the worst.  I know this, I live this ...it's also well documented.  Nothing approaches the pain of this kind of loss. Nothing.  Everyone quickly introduces themselves, names their child, date of loss, and how they were lost.  None of them are easy.  A face I hadn't seen before stood on the outskirts of the room.  She said her daughter died eighteen years ago by electrocution.  Something flickered in my brain, and I thought back to that summer day so long ago.  Other people there had lost a child the same way, but they were older.  I looked at my husband, he didn't flinch.  Could it be?  The group separated into two, being large that night.  Off she went.  Out of my head.  But again, last night, our introductions, this time from behind I couldn't see, the same voice lost a child, 9, eighteen years ago, electrocution.  Again, the group is large, so we separate, her off to the different room.  Out of my head.  At the end of the night, she approached me.  "I'm so sorry about your daughter."  "Thank you, I say."  "I lost my daughter eighteen years ago, it still hurts, but you will get through it."  She asks me my girl's name.  I tell her.  I ask her where she is from.  She tells me.  I ask her the neighborhood. She tells me.  "By Engine 3."  "Yes, right around the corner from me."  I don't want to pry, but something pushes me on.  "Was your daughter climbing a tree?"  Eyebrows furrow.  "Yes, she was."  Was it summertime?"  "August 12, yes, it was the most beautiful summer day."  I hesitate;  I know her story.  I've carried in my heart for eighteen years.  "I think my husband responded to that call."  She looks around the room.  I tilt my head toward my big, tall Irishman.  Hand goes to her cover her mouth.  "I never met anyone who came to her."   I call his name.  He looks up to her, there eyes meet as I watch.  "You were there, with my daughter."  He looks to me, confused.  "The nine year old in the summer, remember."  I watch his face, stricken as he opens his arms and he embraces her.  They rest, these two intimate strangers in each other's arms.  "I knew you looked familiar" he says.  And they relive the story, together, one following the other, sharing the details, reliving the nightmare as if it were just then ...together.  "I remember you jumped the fence."  "Yes, I gave her mouth to mouth."  Detail after detail spills out.  "I don't want to upset you with these details" he says.  "No, tell me everything you remember."  "The kids were at the corner, waiting for us."  "Yes, that was ..."  "It was around 5:00, I had just arrived to work."  "It was 5:20."  They go on and on.  Stopping to hold each other.  She turns to me to hold me, "I'm sorry she said, I don't mean to ignore you, I don't mean to not talk about your daughter."  How could she know what was happening inside me, recognizing how God had prepared us ...for this loss, our own, so recent and fresh.  So many years ago, he began to ready us as our hearts ached for this mother and father we didn't know, but whose loss wedged its way into our hearts as a story we would never forget.  And here we were eighteen years later, embracing each other.  I pulled out Phoebe's picture.  "Phoebe? ...she is beautiful."  She stares at that picture and whispers to herself  "Phoebe is with Joy.  Phoebe is with Joy!"  For the first time I heard her daughter's name ...Joy!  Phoebe is with Joy!
This mother says to us that she has not come for a while now, but something made her come.  She knew a woman who recently lost a son to cancer and encouraged her to find support in this group.  But that wasn't the reason ...something had pulled her back, called her back.  She didn't know what ...but now she did.  She came to know the man who tried to save her daughter, who heard her wails like no other ...the wailing of a mother over her lifeless child.  She came to us ...this couple, this mother and father, that she had prepared so long ago for their own loss ...of their own girl.  She came to tell us that Phoebe is with Joy ...that Phoebe is with joy.  She came to tell us.
Quickly, I figure when Phoebe was born in relation to Joy's death.  Pregnancy is nine months and one week.  Phoebe was born nine months and five days after Joy died.  From the beginning of her life, the moment of her conception, God has been preparing us to lose her ...or, preparing us to offer her back ...with Joy, with joy!
Have I not asked that I might deliver my girl, my Phoebe, to the manger with a great love and joyful heart.  And He has heard my plea, my prayer, my begging ...and he has lit my path.  Phoebe is going to the manger, to Bethlehem with Joy.  I've begged in prayer for God to give me that joy in my heart ...and He has given more than I've asked for ...He's given me Joy ...this nine year old girl, my husband tried to save, and her mother, with the gold crucifix around her neck, who whispers, for Him, Phoebe is with Joy!
And so, already, just into my journey, with my girl swaddled in my heart, to be delivered ...look at the gift I have received.  God's generosity can never, will never be outdone. Look at who I've met on my way to Bethlehem.
This is a story only God could write ...and it has been written ...for me.  Thank you dear Lord.

Eternal rest grant unto Phoebe and may perpetual light shine upon her.  May she rest in peace, Amen.