I'm just gonna come right out and say this: I'm not in a
writeup mood. I'm tired, I feel sick, and I have a brand new issue of
Maxim that I haven't even touched. But today was just... too amazing to not remember. So here I go.
I got a call today from a woman. She couldn't tell me what she needed, only that she was feeling very anxious, and that life was going too fast. She said she needed to go to our local
crisis center. I typecoded it as a
suicidal person only because I didn't know what else to call it. Since there was no actual threat of suicide, I was going to let her go so I could answer other lines, but in this soft, tired voice she asked me to stay on the line with her until officers got there. So I did. Normally when I keep people on the line like that it's just periodically asking for updates so the officers know what's going on when they are driving there. But she just wanted me to stay there. To be there for her. So I did. I started talking to her about whatever I could think of... first I asked her why she felt the way she did. There were a lot of reasons, but one of the main reasons she hit on was that she was developmentally
disabled. We talked about that for a while. How she hates the word "
retarded" because it takes on such a demeaning tone. I had to agree, because it is so true. We talked about her sister, who lives in a board and care home. I wanted to ask what her parents had done to make them this way, but I couldn't. We talked about her day, and what she liked to do. Finally I heard a soft knocking in the background, and she asked me to hold on while she got the door. It was as though I was talking to an old friend. When I finally hung up with her, I felt sad for the first time after taking a call. I let down the barrier. I got to know her.
Driving home today I looked up to see that the sky showed the signs of dusk or twilight. I initially attributed it to
Daylight Savings Time which just started, but then I glanced down at the clock to see that it was a mere 3:30am. I realized it was the light of the full moon that was doing this. So I drove out to the
levee road to see it on the water. As it turned out, the entire place was blanketed in fog. It soon became so dense that I could only see about 15 feet in front of me. Finally I pulled off the road and stopped. As I stepped out, I looked up at the moon, to see it shining steadily through this blanket of fog, with 3 different multicolored
coronas surrounding it. The water was quiet, and I walked down the bank to the shore. I literally had tunnel vision because all I could see was about 20 feet of water in front of me, the fog, and the moon. Mere words can't describe what it felt like to witness something like that. It was like my own world there. I was the only one around for miles, and nobody was awake that I could call. So I did the only thing I could think of. I knelt down and prayed to
God and thanked
Him for sharing this moment with me.