It's midnight and I'm home alone ... again.
Only 30 minutes ago, we had climbed into bed together. We were both tired after a long day at work. He's spent 12 hours at his "other job" as a contractor building homes and I've spent a long day at the newspaper, dealing with the endless dramas there.
I had just snuggled into his arms, letting myself enjoy the cool summer air blowing through an open window. Country living has its benefits, and hearing only the crickets outside was one of those benefits.
Suddenly, the quiet was pierced by the sound of his pager.
He jumped out of bed, apologizing as he zipped his pants and ran out the bedroom, pulling on his boots as he hopped down the hallway. In seconds, his truck was speeding down the lane. It's a 45-second trip to the station, but he isn't a firefighter tonight; he is a First Responder.
Somewhere across town, someone is having a medical emergency and has called for help.
He is one of four people who can respond and two of those people are out of town this week.
I don't know when he'll be home, or whether he'll be able to sleep when he gets here. I just know that this is the fifth time in a week that he's left me alone at night.
But I don't mind.
Just a few hours ago, he and I were enjoying a drink on the deck, looking at the sun setting over the bluffs behind the house. We talked about the day our youngest son, 12, fell from a second-story bedroom to a concrete patio below.
He was two. He had been jumping on his brother's bed when he lost balance and fell against an open window. The screen gave way and he fell some 25 feet.
I was in the kitchen at the time and saw what I thought was a pillow land on the patio. Then I heard my oldest son, then 14, scream our youngest son's name.
It sounded anguished.
Then my middle son, then 10, who was in the living room watching t.v., screamed as well.
I turned my head and saw the lifeless body of my baby laying on the patio.
In that moment, all clarity of thought disappeared. I ceased to function.
I screamed my husband's name, then told my sons to run up the street to get our neighbor, who was a police officer. As I dialed 9-1-1, I watched my husband kneel by the body of our precious baby. As I sobbed my emergency into the phone, I felt ill and felt my legs buckle. I dropped to my knees. The dispatcher asked if my son was breathing and I said, "I don't know."
She told me I had to ask.
"I don't want to know," I screamed, certain he was dead and determined to delay knowing that as long as possible.
I heard my husband calling my son's name, crying.
My sons ran back into the house, frantically crying that the neighbor was gone.
Just then, we heard it ... sirens.
"It's the ambulance!!" my sons yelled, and ran outside.
Within seconds, I saw men carrying cases run into my house to the back patio.
And that's when I finally allowed myself to breathe.
Help had arrived. People who knew what to do were there. People who could save my son were there now.
Still kneeling, I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up.
It was a female First Responder.
"Are you okay?" she asked, as she checked my pulse. Over her radio, the First Responders from outside called into dispatch that my son was breathing, appeared to have no broken bones, but was unconcious and being prepared for transport. I began sobbing in relief.
My son was alive.
The woman holding my wrist told me I my heart was racing, my pupils were unfocused and I was hyperventilating. She insisted I lay back with my feet elevated as she continued to check my pulse.
She repeated my name, urging me to breathe, telling me I needed to calm down and focus on breathing.
"Don't let your sons see you faint," she whispered. I looked at my two sons, who were looking back and forth from me to their brother.
She told me to look into her eyes.
"In through the nose," she said. "Out through the mouth. Breathe."
Finally, I began to focus and feel clear. She helped me stand and told me that I could ride with my baby to the hospital.
She took my elbow and walked with me as I followed the other First Responders who were carrying my son on a backboard through my house. His tiny feet were all I could see.
I climbed into the ambulance, then took hold of my baby's hand, sobbing in an odd mixture of terror and relief.
As we raced across town, I looked at the people around me and burned their faces into my mind.
The next day, two of them visited our son at the hospital. He greeted them with bright blue eyes and big smile. As one of the men rubbed my son's curly blonde head, he commented that he'd worried all night for my son and wanted to check in to make sure he was okay.
We were happy to report that while our son had sustained a concussion, the only other injury was a stubbed toe.
They both began laughing, as tears filled their eyes.
"We like when calls involving kids have happy endings," one said, handing our son a small stuffed animal.
"Did your shift at the station just end?" I asked, as they prepared to leave.
They looked at each other and laughed.
"No, ma'am," said one. "Our shift at the coal mine is just about to begin."
I stared at them, puzzled.
They explained.
They worked at the nearby coal mine. They weren't paid First Responders.
"We're volunteers, ma'am," the first one said. "We're just volunteers."
Tonight, as we sat on the deck and reminisced of that day 10 years ago, I felt myself thinking about what he said: "We're just volunteers."
That day, they were not "just volunteers." At the most terrifying and horrifying moment of our lives as a family, a moment when our precious baby was laying lifeless and we had no clue what to do to help him, these three volunteer First Responders came rushing in and took care of him.
And, at the same time, they gave us our first moment of hope. Our first moment of comfort. Our first moment of relief that things would be better.
With calm and quiet confidence in their skills, they went about doing their job... which was to save our son's life.
"Just volunteers"? They were lifesavers. They were heroes. They were an answer to a desperate, sobbing mother's prayers for help for her child.
So do I mind that tonight, when that pager went off, that my husband lept from my side and ran out the door?
No, I don't mind. Someone out there tonight needs help. A family out there needs the calm quiet confidence of a skilled First Responder who will come into their home and bring help and comfort.
I don't mind because, as I sit here typing this blog, I am looking at the size 13 shoes of my 12-year-old son, remembing how tiny his feet were the day he almost died. And I am thinking of the men and woman who left their homes and families that day to answer our call for help.