In a world that feels upside down more often than not of late, and where the less-than-beautiful sides of humanity seem to be front and center every where you turn, I need to tell you a couple of stories that reminded me recently of how much good still exists.
I wanted to share sooner, but honestly it has taken me a minute to process, to swallow the knot that jumps into my throat as soon as I think about the phone call telling me my mother had been transported to the hospital by ambulance.
Let me pause right here to say that my mother is home. Perhaps it is just to calm my own racing heart that I need to say she is feeling healthy and hopeful about her health and life has resumed its normal rhythm for today. My brothers and I are so grateful.
But two weeks ago tomorrow, she was not ok. The woman who has to be coerced to take ONE solitary Tylenol when she has a head or muscle ache was in such pain, was struggling so much to breathe, that she called for help.
We would learn once help arrived that she was in serious trouble with a lack of oxygen getting to her brain. I am sure that is why the numbers to call for help -- 9-1-1 -- completely escaped her. She told me later that she couldn't think of how to get in touch with me or my brothers. She could only think that she was going to die if she didn't get help. She dialed 6-1-1. Yes. Six -- not nine -- one, one.
She called customer service. And when the customer service rep answered, my mother told her that she could not breathe. Mom is a bit fuzzy on the details, but the rep apparently called an ambulance, gave them her condition, phone number, her address. And then, this dear dear service rep stayed on the phone with my panicked, frightened-for-her-life-mother until help arrived.
I don't even know how to begin to thank this woman. Mom has Verizon -- do they provide the staffing for 6-1-1? My family and I are so very grateful for someone who didn't react with a "not-my-job-mentality" but rather took her role seriously, and seriously saved a life in the process.
Paramedics got oxygen going as soon as they arrived. Mom is much clearer on the details once that began; For instance, she remembers the paramedics asking her about her medications, and how she jumped up and ran to get them, unknowingly dragging the medic holding the oxygen tank for her through her house.
But the part of the story that even now, as I type, brings tears to my eyes is what happened after they loaded my mom in the ambulance and began transporting her to the hopsital:
Ambulance driver: "Ma'am, this neighborhood must love you."
Mom: "Why?"
Ambulance driver: "I have never seen this in my career -- but there is someone from every single home standing at the end of their driveway as we drive you by."
Now, this might be attributed to curiosity were it not for the fact that my mother's phone blew up the entire time I was there. Those neighbors called to check on her, offered assistance, brought food, and assured a daughter who lives far away that they were near and would keep an eye on her.
My mom is doing well today. She went back to work the day after I flew home - she is tough and stubborn, and so strong. Those neighbors know her because she bakes them breakfast when they are bearing hard things themselves. They know her because she decorates her yard so that when they walk their little ones first in strollers, then on tricycles, then bicycles, by her house they are sure to smile. She crochets baby blankets to welcome each new little one in the neighborhood. And then she bakes some more.
In a world where being a good neighbor seems a struggle for so many these days, I am grateful for the life-saving compassion of a Verizon customer service rep, and the homeowners on Rogers Drive in Tupelo, Mississippi.
May we all be neighbors like them.
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