A Blessing (and Lexi's interpretation of it)

This past Saturday, Jeff and a group of guys from our ward drove to Cali early in the morning, went to the UCLA football game in the afternoon, then went to the Dodgers game at night. When the game was over they piled back in the suburban and drove home. They made it back around 3am. First of all, I was so relieved when I heard Jeff come home and knew they were safe, but that's not the story I wanted to talk about...



So, Lisa called on Friday and said she wanted to have people over to swim and have lunch on Saturday while all of our husbands were gone. Sounded great to me! We headed over around 11, and it was a perfect, warm day. We had a great time swimming, then we all got out to eat lunch. And then we all swam again. At one point Lexi was done, so I changed her and she went inside to play. I was still in the pool with Lisa, Jackson, and Lisa's kids and nephew. Lisa and I were talking in the pool on the little wet deck (an area in about a foot of water), when Jackson climbed out and started running around the pool to the other side. He had done this several times to get to the hot tub, and I figured he was doing the same thing and I would go get him before he had a chance to climb in. So, I turned to Lisa to say something (this all happened SO FAST) and turned back to watch Jackson running, but I couldn't see him. I looked around, and then I saw him in the pool just under the surface. As this all registered, I pushed off and swam over to him as quickly as I could. I grabbed him and brought him up, and he was coughing and crying. It took a few minutes to calm him down, but then he started laughing and having fun again.


What had happened when I turned my head for that half of a second was that Jackson was running one way and another kid was running near him and bumped into Jackson, so he fell into the pool. It was just an accident, and the little boy apologized over and over again to me. I was obviously so relieved that I had gotten to him so fast and that he was fine. The other thing that was amazing to me was that Jackson was just underneath the surface of water the whole time (the top of his head was even with the surface) - in a section of the pool that is a few feet deep. Somehow he must have been moving his arms/legs to keep him up. He has never done this before. Anytime I have let go of him or tossed him in the air to play around, he immediately sinks straight down.


As I reviewed this event over in my head, I couldn't help but think of my prayer the night before:

"Heavenly father, please help us to be safe and protected...And please HELP ME TO ALWAYS BE AWARE OF MY KIDS, especially since we're going to go to a new pool tomorrow that we're not used to, and I will have the kids there by myself. Please just help me to be aware of them and not let anything happen to them." I am so grateful that my prayer was answered, and I have prayed several times since then to thank Heavenly Father for answering my prayer and helping Jackson to be okay.


So, Lexi was inside while that happened to Jackson, and I didn't tell her until last night. After we put her to bed she came into my room (she always finds some excuse to get out of bed!) while I was reading the BofM. She climbed into bed with me and asked me to tell her "the story," pointing to what I was reading, so I told her about Samuel the Lamanite. She wanted another story, so I told her about Jackson falling into the pool and how mom had prayed to always be aware and Heavenly Father and Jesus had helped him to be okay and helped me to be aware of Jackson so I could help him. Lexi thought about this for a second then said, "and Jesus was in the cool(pool)? and Jesus put his swimsuit on?" I just had to laugh. But who knows...