My Strangest Call Ever

Story Shared at a 911 Conference

When I close my eyes, I can remember every word the man said. He spoke calmly and slowly. He sounded miserable but not alarmed or out of breath. He told me, “A terrible thing happened to a little girl right next to me under a big elm tree by the lake at Burlington Park.”

I confirmed the location, then gave him the usual instructions. “Stay on the line. We’re dispatching emergency personnel. Tell me what happened.”

He started crying and said, “She was laughing and jumping rope. Then her skin got all blotchy and wrinkled. Her hair lost its color. She hunched over. She can’t even walk now without support. It happened right in front of my eyes. It’s awful.”

I asked him, “Can you tell if she’s breathing normally?”

A woman came on the line. She said, “Hello, I’m sorry about this call. I’m Sally Jenkins with the Whispering Willows Senior Care Facility. Mr. Jones is a little confused. I came with him and his wife to the park where they first met eighty-two years ago. Everything’s okay.”

I wanted to be sure I understood her, so I verified. “Just to be clear, Ms. Jenkins, you’re telling me there’s no emergency. Nothing Mr. Jones said is correct. Do I have that right?”

“Well, no,” she said, “everything he told you was accurate. He met his wife under this very tree. They come back every anniversary. He watched all those terrible things happen to her, but you’re right it’s not an emergency — more of a slow-motion, every-day-life kind of tragedy. Would’ve been much worse if it happened all at once instead of taking decades.”

That night I had a hard time falling asleep. Oh, lordy, the memory of my dream makes me shiver! I was walking on grass in slow motion through a fog. Women with baby carriages were passing me at a brisk clip. Every so often, I’d look into a carriage. Each baby was a little bit older than the last one. They were all girls.

The last baby I looked at jumped out of the carriage and ran ahead. A whole line of toddlers followed her and grew step-by-step into little girls. They bounced along with their pigtails and pony tails, their blue dresses and pink shorts. A ladder emerged out of the fog. They all headed toward it. It was the back of a sliding board.

I watched the girls climb, one after another. By the time they reached the top, they were young women. Such glee showed on their faces as they started to slide. By the bottom, they had grown old. They stood up and plodded ahead with canes, then walkers. Next, they got into wheelchairs. Where the fog grew thickest, men loaded them into caskets and carried them away.