Saturday February 11, 2017 I was leaving for an extra shift at work in 45 minutes and laid down on the couch to watch a show with the boys before I left. The phone rings and I wonder if I should answer or not because it was an out of town number. I answer and there is Cody on the other end "Geana there has been an accident, the buggy fell through the ice. Shane and Dad and I are in the ambulance, and Rebecca did not get out. The dive team is on their way. We need you to call everyone you can think of and let them know." I instantly started freaking out and not understanding what he was saying. "What do you mean, Rebecca didn't get out?" "Geana, she is at the bottom of the lake." I talked to Shane for just one second but he was very distraught and I hung up not knowing what kind of shape Shane was in, or if the dive team was on a rescue or a recovery mission. My heart sank, my chest began rapidly going up and down as I cried giant horrifying tears as I began making all of the dreaded calls. I could barely breathe, let alone talk on the phone. Looking back I feel like I created a lot of uncertainty and panic due to my own lack of knowledge on the situation.
Even as I sit here and type I am feeling those crazy, freak out feelings inside of my body just like I did that day 3 weeks ago. It is a giant, long, tear filled story that ends in the death of Rebecca, and Shane and Brent being pulled out of the freezing cold waters by Cody who jumped out of the front of the window of the buggy on solid ice and grabbed for Rebecca, who slipped through his fingers and sunk 100 feet to the bottom of the lake stuck inside the buggy. I won't go into many details here as we have quickly discovered that everyone of us has a different perception of that awful Saturday and we will all write our separate stories elsewhere, but I will say that I believe it is a miracle that we even have the other three men with us still and we are horribly sad at the loss of Brent's wife and our other mother Rebecca. To lose someone in such an unexpected horrific tragedy is something we are still dealing with every single day and will for many years to come. Shane's flashbacks are hard for him to deal with someday's especially the week right after the accident. He had a hard time sleeping for a couple weeks but it gets a little better everyday. Our faith in Jesus Christ is the only thing that will get us through such a crisis as this and we realize this is only the beginning, we, especially Brent, have a long steep mountain to climb ahead.
Our dear friends (cousins) Jake and Alayna Weston immediately came over to my house and offered to drive us up to Flaming Gorge where the accident occurred and my mom and dad took the boys home and helped calm and comfort them. Joe Cottam, my boss and very good friend showed up on the doorstep with a giant box of food just in time for us to pull out of the driveway and take it with us.
We stopped and picked up Shannon (Cody's wife), Katie (their daughter), and headed on the longest ever drive. Don, Dallas, and Lisa (Brent's siblings) drove another vehicle up closely behind us. We cried together while Jake drove and really supported each other through our end of the crisis. Meanwhile Shane, Cody, and Brent sat inside the ambulance while the dive team assessed the situation and decided it was too deep and dark to dive that night and we should meet them back there at 8:00 the next morning. They hopped in their truck and the kind sheriff followed them back to Green River to find us all a hotel room to stay in for the evening. I can only imagine how hard it must have been to walk off the ice in order to not get worse hypothermia and then to have to drive away that evening.
The next morning after a horrible, non-existent night of sleep and some incredibly spiritual hours together crying, thanking God, offering priesthood blessings, and praying harder then ever we headed down to the ice to be with the divers as they recovered Rebecca's body. It is interesting how our prayers changed so quickly from praying for a miracle, to praying for her body to be found so we could have some closure. They found the body by 1:00 that afternoon and we prayed once again thanking God for easing our burdens by letting us find her body. It was a long, agonizing day that we will not soon forget full of miracles and awful sadness. It is something we never wanted to go through and still wake up everyday hoping it is a bad dream but are coming to accept it as a trial to make us stronger and grow closer together as a couple and as a family. If we did not have families this would be unbearable.
This is an earlier picture of the buggy. It is made from scratch by Cody and his genius mind. Cody and Rebecca were in the front and Cody's window was unzipped and Rebecca's was not. Brent and Shane were sitting in the back under the green cage looking thing. They were sitting on it like a tailgate with their legs hanging out the back. We are still unsure how they got out of the cage, but I am convinced that angels pulled them out or they would have gotten stuck and dragged down also.
Some sweet souls put these ribbons on Brent's house before we got home. People brought flowers, tons and tons of food, offered sweet kind words through the text messages, called and never received an answer but let us know they were thinking of us, and many many other simple acts of kindness. I was in such a fog for the first couple of days, regular daily life was seemingly impossible. One dish just seemed too much, making my boys lunches was a giant task, and the cleaning and cooking just wasn't going to happen, but you know what someone stepped in AT EVERY TURN. The spirit spoke to them for me and they just did it, just showed up. I could write page after page about the roots of kindness and compassion showed to our entire family. My sweet friend told me as she walked away from my house the next day "Isn't it amazing to live among people who keep their covenants." My other sweet friend told me that she thinks the fog is God's way of not giving us more than we can handle, because it is like taking it in a little at a time instead of all at once. Her words really spoke to me that day, it lifts a little everyday but the fog is so real.
All of our wonderful Plain City friends pitched in and gave us this beautiful picture of Christ that I hung on my wall where I look everyday while I am cooking in the kitchen. It reminds me of my miracle I was given that day of Shane being given a second chance at life and an opportunity to be with me and to raise his children, as well of sweet Rebecca and her call to the next life. Even more awesome is that all of our friends bought one for Cody also. We needed it bad, but we had a ton of support, but Cody he really needed to know people were thinking of him and people care. Once again the spirit spoke to our friends and they acted. What a wonderful lesson of acting when spoken to we have already learned from those around us.
