The Breath of Life

I remember as a foolish 11 or 12 year with a trampoline in my back yard getting a crazy idea.  I think I came up with this idea with my good friend Jared, or was it my cousin Sam - either way I'm going to blame the idea on their influence :)   I think we decided it would impress the girls (and since I was way too scared of them to even remember my name in their presence it might have been my only chance).  The idea was this,  we would prove our manhood by jumping as high as we could on the trampoline and then jumping off.  ...Ok, we'd been dong this for a while already. We were pretty good at cushioning our landing by bending our knees or even doing a forward roll.  The grass was nice and soft too - it was a great idea.  We were going to do it different this time though,  this time when we jumped off we'd land flat on our stomachs on the ground.  It was my turn first, and as I remember it, my first REALLY memorable physics lesson.  That Newton guy was really onto something!  There were also anatomy lessons. That day I learned (among other things) that ribs and knees operate COMPLETELY differently to cushion a landing.  I also learned, on my second try (man, that's even embarrassing to write), that without breath, few other things matter.  I think the first time off  must have absorbed more shock in my forearms - but that second time sure packed a wallop!  Its the only time I can remember having the breath knocked out of me, and I was positive that I was dying.  No mater how hard tried I just couldn't take a breath.  My lungs were like old balloons - too stuck to themselves to inflate.  I was terrified, and I still remember the feeling like it was yesterday.
Then there was today.  Deana called with the news around 11 am - after 29 long days in the pediatric intensive care unit (picu), Christi was being moved to the floor! That meant not as much monitoring was needed because she was getting better!  Progress! A step toward home!!  They might even be on their way home as early as Thursday!  What great news!!!
Then around 4 pm - Christi stopped breathing.  Deana had stepped away for 10 -15 minutes to change her laundry and was on her way back as she heard Christi's room # being read over the intercom with a color code, and saw doctors running down the hall to her.  They were able to start her breathing again, and with that Christi was moved right back into her room in the picu.  Cat scans, reattached monitor wires, and one more anoxic episode later the search begins anew.
Now I've been hit harder - and the worst part is that it isn't me that can't breathe. Oh how I wish that it were!  I'm trying hard to be there for my students and my other wonderful children here and now, and we've had a great time - really.  I ache for my baby girl though.  Maybe I lost my wind this time too.
The spirit of man is described as "the breath of life" in the creation account.  Could she be leaving?  They were never able to determine the cause of her cardiac arrest last year around this time - could it be the same thing causing this now?  Was she trying to go then? When I had learned CPR just a few years ago, I had never imagined how helpless it would feel to perform.
I feel helpless now too.  Yet I trust Him.
He has filled me with His peace in my desperation - He has run to my aid.  I have no idea what comes next, but it's okay because it's in His hands.  He has come to me in the kind words and gestures of friends and ward members. He has lifted me on the wings of their solicitude. He has also personally breathed life back into me on this crushing day, and I stand only with borrowed strength.  It makes sense to Paul and to me - and I'm sure to many others, "when I am weak, then I am strong."  His grace is real, and it is - for today - sufficient.