Five Minute Friday: Bat Signals

 

Five Minute Friday

Word Prompt for September 10th: "Rescue"

Begin:10:50 am

Few people get through a 30+ year career of parenting without collecting a few (dozen) rescue stories. 

The ones that come to mind first, of course, are the big rescues, the ones that live in family lore -- and grow sometimes to size and scope beyond anyone's reckoning when they first happened. The first one that comes to my mind (because I was actually there -- though I didn't do the rescuing) is the time Dominic, then about sixteen or seventeen years old, separated from me during a hike up St. Mary's Glacier in the mountains of Colorado.

The trail was a bit steep for me, but Dom wanted to get to the top of a ridge to see the view. He'd pointed out the trail he would take and told me he'd loop around and meet me back at the conjunction of that trail and the trail I was on. OK. No problem. Until he didn't come. And he didn't come. And my Mom-spidey-sense kicked in. I knew something was wrong. An internal bat signal? I don't know. Can't even tell you how I knew something was amiss, but my heart was beating a thousand miles a minute and my adrenals were pumping with nowhere to go. If I followed him up the steep part of the trail, I might miss him if he were already heading back down to me on the downslope trail, but if I headed back the downslope trail, I was leaving the area that had the most danger -- where the ice floe was at the top of the steep trail... where I was afraid maybe he'd fallen.

 So, what to do? What to do? This is what I did: I headed part way back the trail, sat on a rock and prayed like crazy to his Guardian Angel and his name patron, the indomitable St. Dominic. After five or ten minutes, my heartbeat calmed -- and, of course, I'd been calling periodically: Dominic! Dominic! If you don't answer me right now...! And finally -- he answered me. Seems he'd literally slid down a glacier. That "ice floe" was not just any tiny little bit of ice, though it looked it from the bottom of the trail. It was big! And he slid all the way down it before regaining his "footing" so to speak, and finding his way back to the trail junction -- which was a longer hike than either of us realized.  (Yikes!)

The original post is here. But you can see the path, 
traced over to be more visible. That rock outcropping
looks small, but was actually the size of a school bus!

But here's the thing. Using my Nikon zoom lens, we took a picture of the glacier and could see his track in the snow -- which slid for a dozen feet or so -- then just stopped at a huge rock outcropping -- and continued on the downhill side of the outcropping. Dominic was blabbergasted when he saw the photo. He did not walk over any outcroppings. Plain and simple. He didn't crawl or roll over any. He doesn't remember going over them at all -- and has no idea, to this day, how he wasn't mangled on the rocks coming down that glacier. But all he ended up with were some scratches on his legs -- and a renewed devotion to his Guardian Angel. We both know who rescued him that day! Bat signal sent and received before either of us even knew what was going on!

There are plenty of other Big Rescue stories in our family of ten children! Dominic saved Cathy's life one time -- whisking her out of the way of an out of control truck careening off an icy road -- at the very last second! (Kevin was driving the truck! Ack!) I was a proud Momma one time, watching as our son, Paul, stopped on a rather dangerous curve on the Million Dollar Highway above Ouray to roll a boulder off the road to keep an accident from occurring. And I know there are other stories -- too many! I could write a book!

But, honestly -- the best rescues are the little ones, the ones that make life go on a daily basis, you know? Quarter-sized bat signals that add up to so much more because they mean someone is paying attention to the little things that mean the whole world.

One child leaning over the shoulder of another to help with a math problem during our many years of homeschooling. A neighbor who comes to clear our driveway after snowstorms. Our miraculous mailman who can figure out a letter that needs to get to our house, even though it doesn't have even close to the right address on it. A cup of pumpkin spice latte carried across the house with minimum spillage to cheer up a Mom suffering fall allergies. A shoulder rub when it's just really needed.  My daughter-in-law changing over my laundry to the dryer before it mildews. Our grown daughter, Michelle, an accomplished homeopath-in-training who told her Momma just the right thing to take to kick strep this week... (Bless you, Shelly! I'm on the mend!) That is our job on this earth, really, isn't it? Finding ways to come to people's rescue? I think it really is what makes grace and uses grace and makes the world go 'round in spite of all news to the contrary. We make this a wonderful world, ourselves, in our own little corners. No big acts required -- just a thousand and one small rescues can save the planet. We're all super-heroes.

Oop!! 😬Went over! But, ya know.... Got on a roll. Only about 7 minutes over... (Am I disqualified? 😉)

To enjoy lots of other efforts to stay inside the five minute limit, run over to this week's Five Minute Friday!