Chapter 1: The River Runs

The divers could not free her leg. They dove and came back reporting its condition and position but could not free it. The water, rushing high and fast broke on her now ice cold shoulders and the sun was setting. Breath was not coming easily. She had been in too long.

I had never felt such deep respect for land and sea or the lightning speed of life that I felt in this majestic place that was holding my daughter in its clenches. I was powerless.

This year seems to be about the lessons of water. My life is now governed by the gratitude of communion with God and the journeys that have gotten me here.

 I knew after 40 min of trying that the rescue plan was getting perilous. The captain called “Ok Momma, time to climb in.” There were 3 plans:

1.Use the car grease and get as much on her and the rocks as possible and see if it would come out the way it went in.

2.Actually, I have no idea what #2 was, as it involved something dramatic and painful.

3.Knock her out and do what it takes….whatever it takes…. to free her from the underwater rock ledge that had her trapped.

It had been such a beautiful day. Our first all summer to just relax and enjoy being outside. A few weeks earlier in the torrential rains of July, the basement had flooded. It knocked out the electrical and also the sump pump, allowing groundwater from the creek to bubble up through the floor like geysers. After a week of mud and water and clean up, things were finally dry. During the slogging backbreaking mess, I continued to realize that we hold so much we do not really need. Yesterday made me who I am and I am grateful, but I can hold it in my heart and let the rest go. In this case I simply had too. Memories and household items, decorations and holidays shoveled into industrial garbage bags. I am learning to listen to myself, to the voice inside that has always been right whether I like it or not. The repair was going to be $30,000 and at this point in the pandemic who has that floating around?……Pardon the pun. I heard the voice say, “Don’t rush, it will come. Just do this work. It is all you have.”

So here we are, in the cold rushing water and I am hearing the same thing. “Don’t rush, Just do this work.” I climbed in and wrapped myself around my frightened beautiful daughter and looked at her dead on, “We have this, we have done more than this. I love you and will never leave you.” They started. Scuba divers and tubs of grease- back up plans quietly ready to go. 

Please God, she is mine, please God I am not ready, please God please God please God.

Only a few months ago, before the flood or this moment, I was trapped in another country without water for several days. It was there that it came to me the ways I had been wrong about gratitude. Or rather, that my experience of gratitude was elementary. It was not a “happiness is” list. Rather it is true satisfaction in the love and care God is providing you in the moment you are living. I don’t discount the “happiness is” list. It is a practice of presence but the depth of gratitude is much different. You will never be alone, you will always have what you need. It is already yours. 

In this moment though I was not ready to let go. I was not ready for my child to be a memory or to once again face down challenges to my ideas of grace. 

“Just do the work”

Divers are under and I hear her cry out, 

“Breathe,” I say; maybe to her, maybe to me.

Then her ankle was free, then her knee and before I knew it they had her out and cradled. 

I looked up and thanked God, the rock, my ancestors and hers for giving her back to me, as if it is even somehow about me.

There though, on this once peaceful Sunday under the blue sky, there was a deep undeniable feeling that we were all somehow reborn.

I am Momma but I did not experience this alone. My heartfelt thanks go to Ari, Aaron, The Leeds Fire and Rescue team, Columbia County Hospital, the First Responders and all the other people at the river that day who came and supported us with anything at all they could think of. I honestly felt love like it was a ring of light around us. If that is, you can see love itself.