The Promise of Community
Tonight at the store we heard shouts of “Someone call 911!” As a crowd gathered my wife and I didn’t want to join in the scene of onlookers, but when we saw a baby boy on the ground and his father pleading in Spanish for help as store employees seemed to be standing around I ran over to see if I could help. Sadly I’m not confident in my ability to revive a child, and gratefully someone else took over as the father knelt beside the 1 year old boy. Realizing I wasn’t helping, and not wanting to crowd around, I wasn’t sure what to do, or how to help….when the sound of crying appeared. 2 little girls standing by a cart, hugging each other, now sobbing, and that’s when it became apparent these were the daughters of this father, their brother having just collapsed and had a seizure, not breathing, eyes open lifeless on the ground. I went over to the girls, 7 and 5, and stood behind them, put my arms around them and rubbed their arms and backs and repeated that it would be alright. As their brother began breathing again I told them to look
