Hard Words to Hear

Recently I had a moment to sit with Daisy and ask her about how she is doing. I have been particularly worried that she might be carrying the weight of her daddy's death on her shoulders since she was with him that fateful day.

A dear friend, who happens to be a biblical family counselor, told me that she really needs to verbalize what happened that day so that she can get it out "in the open". So, I asked her to share her experience. What I was not ready for was the images that came to my mind as she described what happened. As she was sharing her side of the story I had a deep gut ache. I wanted to go back into time and do something, anything to help him. I can see God's plan in not having me there because I would have felt even more helpless. But, I can't help having the "what-if's" creep into my thoughts every now and then.

Daisy said that Eric seemed fine when he went into the store but when he came back out to the truck he was struggling to breath. She felt very helpless and wasn't sure what to do until Eric handed her his phone and said dial 911. As I write this I am again feeling that ugly,

gut-wrenching, anxious feeling.

She dialed but it just kept ringing. Someone else came out of a store and saw the need so she called 911. Her phone dialed right in and help was on its way. In the meantime, Eric was suffocating and so Daisy ran to Best Buy to get help from them. The security guard came out but there really is not much that you can do for someone whose airway is filled with mucos. I can envision what was going on with him because from what Daisy told me it was very similar to what happened in the hospital in November. But, then I was able to hold him, talk to him and he was being given medical care on the spot. This time he dropped to the ground and help just could not get there fast enough.

When the ambulance did arrive he was in need of life saving measures so they put a catheter in his jugular vein, intubated him right away, and used the paddles to bring back his heart. He probably went five to ten minutes without help. The Doctors in the ER said that the average human can only go three to four minutes without air before their brain completely shuts down. During this whole time Daisy said that she was swept away by some by-standers and then handed over to the police detective. I asked her if she was scared. She said she was scared and that she wanted to be by her daddy's side but they would not let her. Children do not understand the fraility of life...if Daisy had I believe that she would have begged to tell her daddy one last good-bye or say "I love you" one more time.

Daisy and I shed some tears as we talked about how nothing she could have done would have changed the outcome. God's plan was for Eric to go onto his eternal life that day.

A few weeks before this we had a discussion about eternal life. Lil' Cowboy was asking if John the Baptist baptized him. We replied that our pastor did because John the Baptist has been dead a long time. Of course, me being the antogonist of the family chimed in and said that really John the Baptist was still alive. They all looked at me with that oh-great-here-we-go-again look. I explained that we are eternal beings that really do not die...only our mortal bodies die. Little did we know that this subject would hit so close to home in such a short time. Daisy and I talked about how Eric is living his eternal life even though his mortal body is buried.

It was a good conversation and got us that much closer to healing the deep pain in our souls for our daddy and husband.

~Lazyd