breathe

BREATHE

A piece of my heart tried to slip away from from my grasp. There was too much of too many feelings for one moment to hold. Too much fear and grief and fight in my body to make any sense of. 

Our hearts have the capacity for so much more than our minds. While my heart was broken and shaken and changing forever, my mind was still and clinging to one thought.

Breathe.

While my beautiful daughter was laying there with a still heart, mine became an unrelenting roll of thunder. While she had no breath in her lungs, my husband gave her all of his breath and I held mine. She is a piece of us. 

It turns out we are all only seconds away from our worlds becoming unrecognizable. The reality of that is both terrifying and beautiful. 

Life is so precious. We take for granted the normalcy of our days and expect the next day to be waiting for us when we lay down to sleep. 

The day I became a mother, preserving life became my full-time job. I had to protect my children and their survival depended on me and my husband. We needed each other. Death became terrifying. So, I bought the best carseats and baby monitors, crept into their room at night to see if they were breathing, doused them in oils to support their little bodies, and obsessed over feeding them all the right foods. These things were in our control. These things made me feel safe. 

We stood on the edge and took in the view. In a minute that lasted an eternity, we saw life without Quincy. That filter colors everything now. 

Hugs linger, talks are longer, laughs are deeper and happy moments feels better than they used to. Alongside that, the grief and fear is raw just under the surface all the time. Tears fall seemingly out of nowhere. 

Five days later, my body still feels what my mind can't comprehend. My stomach is twisted, my chest is tight, my heart is fluttering and I shake like I've had a whole pot of coffee.

As mothers, fathers, caregivers of these precious lives, we can only do our best. I will still creep in at night to see if they are breathing, feed them the best foods I can, rub them down with essential oils and protect their safety however I can. These things are in my control. 

All of my life I have battled with God. There have been seasons of leaning in and seasons of turning my back. I have heard people say, "It was God." and wondered what they meant or even shook my head at their easy explanation for what they couldn't explain. Now I know. 

It was God.

I felt God there that night and I can't explain it any other way. Dustin and Lawson saved her life, but they were not alone. Quincy being here today and well is truly a miracle. 

We only have so much in our control and the rest is out of our hands. So, we pray and trust and find peace in Him. We breathe in the life we've been given.

I am so grateful for all of the prayers, love and grace you have given our family. It's indescribable. God is so good and we are so blessed. 

One breath at a time. One hug at a time. One day at a time. We will heal.

we almost lost her

We almost lost her.

We came *so* close to losing our sweet six year old daughter, Quincy, last night it's hard for me to even wrap my mind around. My stomach is twisted up in knots and I still feel the adrenaline. I debated even talking about this because I haven't been able to process it yet but this is important and it can't be talked about enough. 

DROWNING IS SILENT AND IT HAPPENS FAST. 

Six adults sitting just 10 feet from the pool, scanning and counting kids over and over and still this happens. It happens FAST and there is NO NOISE. It was deafeningly silent. One minute I saw her outside the pool and the next my 9 year old, Lawson, is screaming that she's drowning. 

As she fought to get her head above the water to gasp for air, we sat there and didn't see. 

We sat there. 

The guilt about that is real. It's heavy. We have to remember that drowning doesn't look like big splashes and a person screaming for help. She tried and tried to call for help but couldn't. She couldn't get above the water and so the struggle was hidden and deadly quiet. 

Seeing my husband pull her limp body out of the water and seeing her closed eyes and purple face as he tried to breath life into her still little body, my whole world stopped. She looked like she was gone. 

It only took a few breaths for her to start vomiting and screaming and gasping for air, but it felt like an eternity. 

Lawson and Dustin's quick reaction saved her life. I have no doubt that just another minute longer and she'd be gone or have had serious brain damage. Our friends calling 911, helping with the chaos and keeping our three other kids while we went to the hospital in the ambulance was a HUGE blessing. 

My little girl woke up mad. She woke up fighting. She spent the night in the hospital under observation and she is completely fine. We are SO lucky. God is so good! This could have ended completely differently. We are not unchanged though. We have been shaken to the core. We almost lost her.

This STAT I read last night has me counting every last one of my blessings: "As many as 20% of near drowning survivors suffer severe permanent neurological disability. NEARLY ALL WHO REQUIRE CPR DIE OR ARE LEFT WITH SEVERE BRAIN INJURY." 

Quincy needed CPR. She woke up. She is with us and healthy. She defied those odds. Praise God! 

This is not new - we've all seen the articles circulate on FB or the warnings pop up about what drowning really looks like. I had read them and I thought I was watching carefully. With four kids in the pool, it was a constant, "1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4." It's all true. Drowning is silent and it happens fast. Even when you are right there. Even when you are 10 feet away and there are 6 adults and you JUST saw they were okay less than a minute ago. 

WATCH YOUR KIDS IN THE POOL DILIGENTLY.

MAKE SURE YOU KNOW HOW TO DO CPR.

Drowning doesn't look like drowning in the movies. It doesn't sound like anything at all. It can happen right next to you and you wouldn't even notice if you weren't paying attention. 

BE SAFE THIS SUMMER FRIENDS. HAVE FUN BUT BE DILIGENT. 

Please share if you feel led. This is a topic that can't be discussed enough!

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Edited to add: 

I wasn't anticipating the response this post received and have gotten lots of private messages and comments asking the same questions. I'll do my best to answer some here:

Quincy took private swimming lessons the last two summers. She is not proficient yet and we had her wearing floaties. Please keep in mind, even very good swimmers can drown. We will be using a life jacket from now on and it won't come off by the pool at all. All my kids will continue to take private swimming lessons. 

When this accident happened, we were by the pool and she and I had just talked about her going back inside. She was not in the pool but my 10 year old son was playing in the pool with a big pool float. I wish I had walked her inside, because she didn't obey. She decided to climb on the big pool float and forgot her arm floaties. I was 10 feet from the pool with 6 other adults, talking and watching and none of us saw her get on the float or slide off into the water. Thank God, my son did. He didn't know she was struggling though. He watched her under the water thinking she was swimming until she suddenly began to float face down. The pool float blocked her from our view. We missed those critical moments where we could have seen her go under and I had assumed she'd gone inside when she wasn't by the pool. Lawson saved her life by responding as soon as he understood what was happening. 

Key lessons for us:

• Swim lessons every year
• Life jackets (not just arm floaties) on when we are by the pool at all times for the kiddos who haven't mastered swimming yet
• Have an adult designated to be doing nothing but watching the pool at all times
• Keep large floats out of the water when several kids are swimming at once