“Extremely loud and incredibly close”

I started reading this book that my 18 year old cousin recommended to me when she was 17. it’s a book about a nine year old boy who lost his dad in 9/11. There’s a part in the book (one of the many) that really struck my heart because…it’s about ambulances and fire engines. When I was little, we had a house fire and I’ve never been able to hear an ambulance or fire engine drive by..without feeling this dread and fear and unease..and it’s really like nails on chalkboard for me…beyond a pet peeve…almost unbearable. It’s a reminder of loss you could say…not only about the fire but of other losses..and let’s just say…where once it was an annoyance…it has become heartwrenching and impossible for me to hear. And you can’t avoid it…it’s a sound that one could get used to…sirens wailing by…but it stops me in my tracks.

The strangest thing happened a week or so ago…an ambulance went by…on the whole, I send good thoughts, prayers, whatever u may call it…to whoever is in that ambulance or to the person or people waiting for that ambulance. It may seem irreverant to laugh as an ambulance drives by…but the other week…one did and there was this boy about 13 on a skateboard…and the ambulance wails by…and I see this boy put his hands on his ears dramatically and comically while riding on his skateboard…yah, that could cause him to get hurt and summon an ambulance..but something about his dramatasized actions made me giggle..so it was the first time an ambulance/fire engine went by and I didn’t feel clenched up, in fear, dread. I was actually smiling. Something changed my pattern with this. I really feel it turned something around.

But What I wanted to share from the book…this is still what I wish…that people could know as an ambulance drives by…

From the book: “An ambulance drove down the street between us and I imagined who it was carrying, and what had happened to him. Did he break an ankle attempting a hard trick on his skateboard? Or maybe he was dying from third degree burns on ninety percent of his body? Was there any chance that I knew him? Did anyone see the ambulance and wonder if it was me inside?

What about a device that knew everyone you knew? So when an ambulance went down the street, a big sign on the roof could flash:

DON’T WORRY! DON’T WORRY!

If the sick person’s device didn’t detect the device of someone he knew nearby. And if the device did detect the device of someone he knew, the ambulance could flash the name of the person in the ambulance, and either:

IT’S NOTHING MAJOR! IT’S NOTHING MAJOR!

Or if it was something major,

IT’S MAJOR! IT’S MAJOR!

And maybe you could rate the people you knew by how much you loved them, so if the device of the person in the ambulance detected the device of the person he loved the most, or the person who loved him the most, and the person in the ambulance was really badly hurt, and might even die, the ambulance could flash:

GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU! GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU!”