Jack Michael, my Hero

Most of you know that I've been suffering through a bout of kidney stones for the last 2 weeks. On one of the worst days, I was laying in bed trying to forget about the pain. Colette, Josie, and Jack were napping and Mike had taken Vanessa to soccer.

Jack woke up from his nap and found me, as he always does. He climbed into bed and snuggled with me and said that he wanted "jelly with bread". I was pretty pathetic and whinned that "Mommy isn't feeling very good. You need to be a patient boy." He got out of bed and mumbled something that I couldn't understand. I thought he went downstairs to watch t.v.

About half an hour later, the door bell rings. I was still in pain and didn't want to answer it, but then I heard Jack moving the chair to the door so he could unlock the upper lock. He was saying: "You have to wake up Mommy" over and over. So I got up and went downstairs to see who it was. Peeking through the window were 2 police officers.

I opened the door and they said: "Are you O.K.?"

At this point, I thought something had happened to Vanessa and Mike and I said "Yes! Why?!?"

The female officer talked into her walkie talkie and said "We're in contact with Mom." (Kind of like in the movies.) They looked at each other and then said: "Jack called us and said that you needed rescuing. He's been on the phone with the 911 operator until we got here. He kept saying that his mommy needed to be rescued."

I explained the situation to them and said that I've been working through some kidney stones and that I was fine. I told them that Jack was autistic and he doesn't quite understand. They said they knew that (from Jack's previous fun attempts at calling 911--it's in our "file") and that next time they will call our cell phone numbers to confirm the call is legit. I thanked the officers (profusely) and apologized as they left.

At one level I wanted to get so angry with him for wasting important community resources that way, but on another level I wanted to celebrate: He got it. Something was wrong with Mommy and he called for help. He had the presence of mind to stay on the line (Jack doesn't particularly like talking on the phone) with the 911 operator until the police got there. He totally got it.

I cried as I hugged him to tell him that I was ok, but that I was just not feeling well.

Now I know that if anything goes wrong, Jack gets it. Jack will rescue me. He is my hero.