Reed’s Birthday Trip to Itasca State Park

Sawyer has always had an amazing auditory memory.  He can remember entire scenes in movies verbatim after only watching them one time. When Sawyer was about 2 years old, he shared his prowess for movie dialogue during the fellowship time between church and Sunday school.  While we were all visiting in the Fellowship Hall, Sawyer and his curly-headed, little self, decided he was gonna blow this pop stand.  Instead of just doing that, he had to declare, so that all in attendance that fine Sunday morning, could hear, “Hasta La Vista, Babyyyyyy”, and then he spun around and sped off like Speedy Gonzalez.

Then it began – the penetrating stares from the Evangelicals.  You know the stares, which wonder what type of parents would allow a 2-year-old to watch the Terminator movies.  I wanted to slink under the table almost as much as the time a few months earlier that Reed asked if everybody was drinking beer at the fellowship time.   What kind of parents were these people?  What really goes on in that household? Beer and R-rated movies!

Oh wait! They didn’t understand. It wasn’t the Terminator movies (to which I must confess having never seen). Sawyer was just a devout follower of the Rescue Heroes.

We were the first on our block to have Rescue Heroes.  We had the toys, the dress-up clothes, and the movies.  Reed and Sawyer played Rescue Heroes for hours on end.  We had every hero, vehicle, and their headquarters.  As an action figure girl myself, I loved that the heroes could stood up on their ginormous feet.

Once in the cartoon, a naughty guy (because nobody was ever really bad on the RH – naughty, hasty, naïve, but never bad) didn’t listen to the warnings that the ski hill was too dangerous. The heroes tried to warn him, but nope, he just pushed right on off that ski lift and yelled, “Hasta La Vista, Baby” and skied himself right on into an avalanche.  Of course that required the heroes to do what they do – rescue!  And THAT ladies and gentlemen (and judging stare givers) is where Sawyer picked up the phrase at 2-years-old.

Our love for the Rescue Heroes never really went away.  It has carried over into our respect for the real-life everyday heroes who do the jobs that were represented in the cartoons of boyhood yesteryear.  Those same people were the ones that spent Reed’s final moments with him.  The few details we do know are that despite everything that was going on around them.  Reed was loved on by those who attended to him.  We know that he was hugged and we know that he was prayed over.  For both kindnesses, we are eternally grateful.

Just like last year, we invited all 27 responding units to the Lakeview Bus Crash to be our special guests at Reed’s Run.  Their presence last year was healing to much more than our family.  Knowing that in the some of the darkest moments of life, our neighbors, many of whom are volunteers, walk into the storm because that is what they are called to do should make each and every one of us humbly proud.

Although most responders would say, “I am just doing my job”.  I would respectfully rebuff that notion and state that the way they conduct their jobs have influenced many people.  I know because my family has never taken for granted a speeding ambulance or patrol car or a whirring helicopter since that awful day.  If you can replace complacency, in busy, harried lives, with reflective prayers of safety and guidance, then I would say you are probably someone to be admired.

I think there are many that would agree with me!