Timing is Everything

Anyone who knows me well knows that if I LOVE a song that I will LOVE it to death. I literally kill a song for anyone that is with me a lot. My high school friends would get annoyed, my college roommates would get annoyed and now my husband will have songs eternally played over and over. One of my all time favorite songs is probably not on anyone’s top ten favorite lists, but it is on my top ten favorite list because it strikes a big chord in my heart. I tear up almost every time I hear the first verse. It is called, Timing is Everything by Garrett Hedlund. The first verse and chorus goes:

You know I've had close calls
When it could've been me
I was young when I learned just how fragile life can be
I lost friends of mine
I guess it wasn't my time
Timing is everything

And I could've been the child that God took home,
And I would've been one more unfinished song
And when it seems a rhyme is hard to find
That's when one comes along
Just in time

I was eight years old and I was fasting for the first time. Well, I tried to anyway. My mom didn’t know that I snuck into the pantry to nibble at a few graham crackers after church before dinner. I remember I started to feel funny before we ate dinner and during dinner I started to feel like I had the flu. I started to throw up after dinner. I thought I was being punished for sneaking those darn graham crackers. I think my mom knew from the beginning that I didn’t have the flu, but that something was wrong.

Just that year a boy in my Sunday school class had hiked up to the Four Peaks Mountains with his uncle, aunt, cousins and brother. I don’t know if my parents explained it correctly to me at the time. I was young and I don’t know how much detail they went into with me. All I know is that he was sitting on the edge of a cliff with one of his cousins and part of a rock split in half and he fell down the mountain. I remember his death really impacted me. I still think about Nathan to this day. I can still picture him with his dark brown hair and freckles. He was in my Sunday School class at church, but our families were friends too and so we saw eachother outside of church also. My mom taught preschool with his mom. We would go over to their house and neighborhood to play.  I think at that age it was too hard for me to comprehend my feelings or understand what had happened. It might sound gory, but I pictured him laying at the bottom of the cliff dead. It scared me and I had a very hard time sleeping. One night I had a dream and Nathan was in my dream. He was in my Sunday school class and he was having fun with the rest of us. He was fine, he looked himself, and he was happy. After that I wasn’t as scared. My parent’s other friends had a little baby that died right before or after Nathan’s death, and our family went to visit them and bring them a little gift. I remember everyone being sad and I didn't understanding why everyone was so sad over a baby. Now as a mother myself, if my baby died, I would want to die with my baby. That was my view point as a child though. Right before we moved into our new house, the family that moved out had a boy that had just drowned. That family was in our ward. I remember the year that I got sick that quite a few children died in my ward and stake. My mom told me that it was a hard year in that ward.

I think my mom had a motherly intuition that something was wrong with me, and who knows, maybe after all the tragedies that had occurred in our area, some fear too? She knew deep down that it wasn’t the common flu though. She took me to the emergency room on Monday because our normal doctor was out of town. They told her that it was probably just a virus. So, my mom took me home. Back in the 80’s I’m figuring the medical world was not what it is today. I now look back and realize what a huge deal this was to my mom. My mom NEVER took us to the doctor’s office let alone an emergency room. I don’t ever remember going to a doctor. I became lethargic quickly. I didn’t want to eat, sit up, play, or do anything. I wasn’t an outgoing child, but around the house I was very spunky. I had a very high temperature of 104 degrees. So, my mom kept taking me into the hospital and they kept telling her the same thing. Then I started to hallucinate. I still remember some of my hallucinations. They were very odd. I look back and think, well, what is an eight year old supposed to hallucinate about? Anyone who has gone through a traumatic experience remembers at least some of the experience. I don’t remember this one, but my mom told me that I came into the room that she taught preschool in and I was completely naked and I kept saying, “They’re trying to turn me into a 7-up.” Now everyone can laugh at it. I’m sure it wasn’t funny at the time. The hallucination I remember is a HUGE pile of clothes on the couch with a car on it. I guess I kept pointing at my little sister and saying, “The babysitter is trying to push it on me!” My little sister started crying and ran out of the room saying, “No I’m not!” ha ha ha. The other hallucination I remember is my grandpa’s bald head in the toaster oven. That is gross, but I remember it! Obviously I was very sick. I got a priesthood blessing on a Saturday night. It had almost been a week since I first started throwing up. I wasn’t throwing up any more and my temperature went down a few degrees that day. I now realize how close to death I really was at that time. My appendix had been ruptured for some time and a pocket had formed around the poison, but it had started leaking and it damaged my colon, my ovaries, and my fallopian tubes. I think now that it also did some damage to my bladder wall. It isn’t that my colon or bladder doesn’t work, but they have had damage done to them. My doctor got back in town Sunday morning and he told my mom he would meet her at his office on a Sunday! So, she took me in to see him. When he saw me and checked me out he was horrified. He admitted me into the hospital immediately. He told my parents that it would be touch and go for 24 hours. And it was.

My dad was so worried that I would die, but my mom had faith because of the priesthood blessing I was given. I was very ill. I remember the nurse TRYING to put an adult IV in my arm. It was the only thing that I comprehended. I screamed and screamed bloody murder. The doctors ran in and screamed at the nurse. It hurt badly having someone try to squeeze an adult IV into my tiny veins, but it was also traumatic to hear the doctor scream at the nurse. I remember another girl moaning in the next room once I gained consciousness. I remember tubes everywhere in my sides, down my throat, and in other places. I also remember one night that no one was in my room. I felt awful and the TV was left on. An adult show was on and it was about a hospital. Someone snuck into a hospital room and was putting pillows over patient’s heads and murdering them. It was AWFUL. I couldn't reach the button for the nurse because I was too sick and I couldn't call out to anyone because I had a tube down my throat and plus I was so sick. That was torment! I remember the day they made me sit up for the first time. It was AWFUL! I cried. They made me improve every day. As a child I wondered why they would make me hurt. Then they made me stand one day. I was very upset when they made me walk two steps to the door. And then one day they opened the door and I had to walk into the hall. I got to go home one day and one of my sisters was there. This is the short version of my experience. My parents know all the details, but this is from my view point. Their viewpoint is much more harrowing and awful, but I like this version better. It makes me cry more as an adult because I realize how serious it was now and as a child I still had all my childhood innocence. My story was in the Tribune.  I remember thinking it was kinda cool at the time to have my name in a paper.  Not so much now!  I have the article in my scrapbook.  In reality, I became a fighter as a young child and I've been a fighter ever since.  It was a miracle I survived, and every doctor told my parents just that, "It's a miracle!"  The day I went home, like I wrote, one of my sisters was there. I have 3 sisters. I am the third of 4 girls.  Sister 2 is known for her fits of giggles. We all giggle, but she is known for getting the rest of us to giggle.  The furthest I had walked at that point was down the hall just a little past my room. My mom and my sister motivated me to walk down to the kid’s area just a little ways past my room. They helped me to the kid’s room and I sat on a couch. I felt like every part of my body ached and hurt that I felt like crying. Then my sister started laughing over the silliest thing. I can't even remember what it was, it was so long ago. She got my mom laughing and the entire couch was shaking. When sister 2 starts laughing and mom starts laughing then no one can help but laugh. I was trying not to laugh because I was afraid all my stitches would come out and plus I hurt so badly. I would laugh and then wail out in pain. Then I started crying and they had to take me back to my room. That is my favorite memory of my hospital stay though. It was fun to hear laughter. I had gotten a lot of gifts that I didn’t even notice until that last day.

When I got home I had a big ugly scar and stitches and I hunched over for awhile. I remember being nervous to not have all the nurses and doctors around to help me with everything. My oldest sister let me sleep with her the first night I was home.  Sister 2 and little sister didn’t want to be around my ugly scar. My little sister had been scared off by me when she saw me with all my tubes and all the machines in the hospital. It took me awhile to get back into things, especially gymnastics, but I was alive. I would hear all the details later of what actually occurred, and all the details of how lucky I really was to be alive. I would also hear later in life that I might have problems as I got older, and that I might have trouble having children. But as a teenager those things sound like, “blah, blah-blah, la-la-tee-freakin-da!”

That time would not be the only time that I would come close to death, but it was the first. I’m sure there are some that wonder how something in second grade could affect someone so much. That time has affected me physically my entire life.  It was also my first BIG lesson in empathy and truly understanding what someone might be feeling or going through. Now days when someone's stomach hurts they go get a cat scan and their appendix would never be ruptured to the extent of mine.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that timing is everything. And every time I hear that song I get tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat.

You know I've had close calls
When it could've been me
I was young when I learned just how fragile life can be
I lost friends of mine
I guess it wasn't my time
Timing is everything

And I could've been the child that God took home,
And I would've been one more unfinished song
And when it seems a rhyme is hard to find
That's when one comes along
Just in time