Ambulances ARE good...

Today was Joy School. All of my girls so far have participated in it, and we are all the better for it. It is a preschool that is taught by a group of mothers who rotate turns teaching at their house. The mothers this year have graciously filled in to teach on my weeks as it is impossible for me to tackle that these days. I've had joy school groups of 3 children, 4 children, and even 5 children, which is considered a large group, especially when in addition to the joy school kids you have your younger kids to attend to as well. As this year approached, the mothers met and knew that we would most likely have a group of 6 kids...quite a large group. But we all decided that we thought we could manage it. This meant that we would only have to teach every 6th week, and seemed worth the effort of having such a large group. My dear Joy School friend, a mother who's children I've had the privilege of teaching, and I were visiting last week about how they've all been taking my teaching turns for me. I feel so badly that they are shouldering my responsibilities, but know that teaching is beyond me right now. She reassured me that they were all happy to continue to do it throughout the year, and helped me see one more way that Heavenly Father was setting the scene for this awful time of my life. Had there not been such a large group this year there wouldn't be so many moms to help take my turns teaching. How grateful I am to all of them for being willing to serve me and Eli, my Joy School child this year. It has been overwhelmingly touching to see them all practice such patience with her (she requires just a bit more than the average munchkin, and that's on a good day :) ) and to love her through her grieving quirks. I love those women and want them to all know it.

Today was the field trip to go to a Fire Station. We have a fireman in our ward, who's kids have also done Joy School with ours. He is so easily able to relate to the kids, and teaches them so well. Both Eli and I wanted to be together for this particular trip. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that for us it may be somewhat difficult to see the back and inside of an ambulance...however, that genius was not me. It didn't occur to me that this could be somewhat traumatic, more for me than for her since she never actually saw her dad in the ambulance. But the last time I saw an ambulance it was with Naki laying on a stretcher with his feet angled just so hanging off the end while the EMTs tried so desperately to restart his heart. That is an image I will never forget. I was excited for Eli to have the field trip experience her sister's had, and knew that it had been fun in the past and so anticipated how much fun it would be for her. She was the genius that I should have been. While we were there she immediately grew insecure and timid about being around those huge and sometimes life saving pieces of equipment. As we stood at the back of the ambulance and our good fireman friend opened those doors, I was flooded with so many emotions. I tried hard to not start bawling...it would just kinda ruin the moment of anticipation and excitement that had been built up for the little kiddos...just a little bit. I imagined a dramatic scene of me shouting out, throwing my face into my hands sobbing, and running as fast as I could away from that place. Please, stop the drama...as I always say to the girls. So instead, as I stood there staring at the stretcher and trying to blink back the tears, I looked all around me at those adorable faces staring in fascination into the back of that ambulance. I thought about how unexposed to trauma and trials they are and felt grateful for that. It was refreshing to see such undulated joy and pleasure at the sight that for me feels so horrible and hateful. I realized then that it is unhealthy to always connect ambulances to Naki's death. If I relate every ambulance I see to the night of October 16th and all that means, then I am missing the mark. In that moment I instead chose to remember last year, when one of my little Joy School kids fell unconscious at my house and those brave EMTs rushed over and put that sweet little boy in the back of that ambulance. He is still alive. Eli helped me remember today when last summer at one of Naki's softball games a girl was injured and an ambulance came and helped her. I remembered how an ambulance and it's EMTs came to help my sister who delivered a beautiful healthy baby boy on her living room couch. And I'm positive there are many many more stories like those where much needed help has come from within the back of an ambulance. Today I was reminded that ambulances ARE good, just sometimes what happens inside of them has the ability to transform you in ways you hadn't planned.