Some of you know this story.
Please bear with me, because others don’t, and because I have a point to make here about dogs and their
importance in our lives.
Sophie woke me a little
before 2:30 Wednsday morning. I can lie in bed and tell by her bark how serious
the “threat” to our safety is. This was serious, a frantic bark. And it kept
on. Then I saw tail-lights in the driveway, and the motion detector light
activated. I thought someone was going around to the back, so I pulled on some
clothes and looked. Nobody. I looked for those tail-lights again and realized
that they were emergency vehicles—aha! The police had once again caught someone
at the corner by my house. It certainly had nothing to do with me, so I went to
the bathroom, got a drink of water—with Sophie still barking. Then it all
happened at once—the phone rang and someone pounded on the door. I looked through
my glass door and saw several men on my porch and one had a bag that looked
like an EMT bag.
Grabbed Sophie and opened the
door to a kind man who said, “We had a medical alert call for this address.” I
assured him I was all right, said I do wear an alert bracelet but hadn’t set it
off, hadn’t heard it go off. He asked several times if I was sure I was all
right, and I said I was. He was neither impatient nor angry, just kind. As the
men left, my neighbor wandered up and said “You okay?” Yes, I was.
I looked and realized other
neighbors were out there. I thanked and reassured them, but then the house
security system started going off and the phone rang—I had to run to assure the
security people they should NOT call the police. Somewhere in all this my
son-in-law from Austin called and asked if I was okay. I could hear him
reassuring Megan, my daughter. Then he said Jordan, my younger daughter, was on
her way, so I called and told her I was fine, to go back home. She said she was
so close she’d come ahead. With all the confusion and newly awakened from a
deep sleep, it was not my finest hour—not sure I was even coherent.
I called the medical alert
company and they did have an alarm. They guess I rolled over on the bracelet. I
asked if I should take it off and they said no. They advise sleeping with it
on. The problem, of course, was that I didn’t hear the phone when people called
to verify the alert—no hearing aids and sound asleep.
Today I have thanked and
apologized to everyone (including a Facebook expression of thanks to first
responders), and I’ve learned some lessons. The ringer on the phone by my bed
is now on, and I’ve found out how effective my security systems are, but the
big thing is I will really pay attention to Sophie’s barking. She’s an alert
watch dog (now sound asleep in the comfy chair across from my desk).
The good news: I wrote nearly
a thousand words on the opening of a new novel that morning. Yes, it’s about an
unexpected first responder visit in the night. My mom used to say all things
work to some good.
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