A Lifesaver

This past weekend was a scary weekend here at our house. It was one of those fun, friend filled summer days that could have been an absolute nightmare. My two oldest kids had friends over for the night, and when they all got up in the morning they wanted to head out to the swing. The swing is one my dad made out of that super thick rope that he tied to a maple branch about 50 feet high. Then he set up some scaffolding so the kids could jump and swing super high... I know, it does sound dangerous, but they are really only jumping from like 4ft off the ground and they are swinging. They've been doing this for months and no injuries.

Then on Saturday morning, my daughter's friend was out there with her hoodie on, since it is a bit chilly here in Michigan in August. She swung at just the right height, the right angle, and somehow caught her hoodie on a hook that was there to hook the rope to so the kids could reach it once they climbed up. The sweatshirt around her neck instantly cut off her airway and she couldn't even call for help.

I am so thankful that I have a daughter that was a quick enough thinker, she stood underneath her friend and pushed up onto her tiptoes so that her head pushed up into her friend, and took some of the pressure off her throat. And, then my daughter screamed her head off for someone to come unhook her friend. There was a burn around her friends' neck, and I cannot stop counting all the little what if's... I've wanted to cry just thinking about all the times one of the kids was out there alone, or if my daughter had ran for help instead of doing what she did, what if my daughter wasn't tall enough to push her up, if my dad had put the hook just 2 inches higher and she couldn't have saved her... What if what if ... I've been trying to not think about them, they just keep popping up into my head though.

Freak accidents happen everyday. Our town seems to have been plagued by them the last three years, right around this time. The one year a child from my kids' school strangled to death in the blankets of his bunk bed, the following year a middle school kid from our school shot one of his friends accidentally, and last year a student from our school was playing with a blood pressure cuff around his neck and died. Not too long ago, a very young child from town had a tree fall on him when his dad was cutting wood. All of these kids were from our school, and a lot of the stuff happened right before school was supposed to start. And, I keep thinking that maybe she was the "accident" that was next in line, and somehow, my daughter and the grace of God changed this horrid string of events. Not that it doesn't all happen for a reason. I believe it does. I believe that God will work some good out of every tragedy.

The last few days I've been praying to figure out why it is that this would happen. I know she survived, Thank God, and I know that we have all learned from this, and the hook has been removed. But will the girls be emotionally scarred? Will her parents trust us to let her come back? I'm not usually a person that worries too much, but I've been a mess. The girls seem fine. My daughter's friend calls my daughter "Lifesaver" now, and she means every bit of it. My daughter shrugs it off like she didn't do anything. The mark on her friend's neck is fading, but still sore, and yet I'm still here wondering what the good will be, what the higher meaning and purpose of it all was for. I know that I may never know that answer, but I just keep praying that His purpose is served in this incident. Somehow and someway... But for now, I'll treasure every minute with my children and their friends, with the full knowledge that we do not know what tomorrow will bring.

And even if my daughter doesn't acknowledge it, her friend and her friend's family have expressed their gratefulness for her saving something they could have never gotten back. And I will be forever proud of her for thinking fast in doing what was right. Some of us never get a chance to prove what we really have inside of us, but I think both girls did that day.