Somebody Wishes You a Happy Mother's Day

Somebody said it takes about six weeks to get back to normal after you've had a baby..... somebody doesn't know that once you're a mother, 'normal' is history.

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Somebody said you learn how to be a mother by instinct ... somebody never took a three-year-old shopping.

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Somebody said being a mother is boring .... somebody never rode in a car driven by a teenager with a driver's permit.

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Somebody said if you're a'good' mother, your child will 'turn out good'.... somebody thinks a child comes with directions and a guarantee.

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Somebody said you don't need an education to be a mother.... somebody never helped a fourth grader with his math.

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Somebody said you can't love the second child as much as you love the first .... somebody doesn't have two children.

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Somebody said the hardest part of being a mother is labor and delivery..... somebody never watched her 'baby' get on the bus for the first day of kindergarten ... or on a plane headed for military 'boot camp.'

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Somebody said a mother can stop worrying after her child gets married....somebody doesn't know that marriage adds a new son or daughter-in-law to a mother's heartstrings.

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Somebody said a mother's job is done when her last child leaves home....
somebody never had grandchildren.

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Somebody said your mother knows you love her, so you don't need to tell her.... somebody isn't a mother.

Many thanks to all the mothers who help me be a mother every day, especially our two grandmas (the best we could ever ask for).

National Emergency Telecommunicators Week

This was sent around at my work. It's a blog post from Sheriff Winder's blog (which I can't link to because the link I was given doesn't actually work), and will adequately answer what a day at work is like for a dispatcher. If you have ever wondered what it is like, or what it has the potential to be, read below. It isn't always this way. But it can be and you just never know.

Posted At : February 11, 2009 6:10 PM Posted By : Sheriff Jim Winder

What do you take for granted?

There are some things we all take for granted. We all walk into a room and turn on the light and expect that the lights will come on. We get into our car turn the key and expect that the engine will start. And many of us get into our police cars every day, check on and expect dispatch will be there.

Dispatch is always there and all too often we do take them for granted. We assume that no matter what happens we will always be able to push the button and someone will not only answer, but have the answers to some of the most bizarre questions. Who is responsible for the running water at 8850 West 2800 South? Will animal control respond on a missing python? Call the airport and tell them to stop the planes from coming over us. These and many, many more requests are received and addressed by our Dispatch Center every single day.


We all believe we have the hardest job, it is human nature, weather we are Patrol Deputies, Housing Officers or Intake Clerks we often convince ourselves that what we do is by far the most stressful and on any given day it may be. But take a moment and think about the role of the Dispatcher.


These men and women come to work every day and every night and immediately begin to field calls from angry, upset and frightened individuals. People who are in crisis are often not the nicest to deal with especially over the phone. They scream they threaten, and they demand. When the Deputies arrive on scene the people even if they were completely out of line on the phone with the dispatcher tend to calm down, after all they are now speaking face to face to another human and they are speaking with someone who may just take them to jail. But to the dispatcher no such restraint exists.


And unfortunately it is not just the public who speaks in less than kind tones to our dispatchers. Occasionally Deputies find themselves in stressful situations and may unintentionally take it out on the person on other end of the line. I have, on more than a few occasions heard Deputies bark at the dispatcher when they couldn't find an address, or when a tow truck failed to appear in a reasonable amount of time.


All of the stress of the rude and discourteous people pales in comparison to one aspect of the Dispatchers job.


Imagine sitting in a room with head phones on at 2:30 in the morning. You haven't heard the radio crackle for 30 minutes, then suddenly, you hear a Deputies' panicked voice. "Salt Lake Charlie 31, priority". Your heart begins to race as the adrenaline races into your blood, and yet you have to hold it together. "Go ahead 30". "Salt Lake I am 10-80 East bound 5400 South 4800 West, 100 Miles per hour blue Ford truck 3 suspects". Now your adrenaline really begins to pump and yet you still must hold it together. You hit the tones on your console alerting every on duty member of the Sheriffs Office that a pursuit has begun and at the same time you have just ensured that every Deputy, regardless of location is now switching to listen to YOUR pursuit.


"All units Charlie 30 is in pursuit East bound 5400 South from 4800 West with a blue ford truck occupied three times." The Deputy keys his microphone and nearly screams into the radio, "Salt Lake suspect has just gone dark, still east bound approaching 4000 West". Now the terror really sets in as you realize that a 5000 pound bullet, traveling 100 plus miles an hour is heading for a main intersection without its lights on. After repeating the Deputies traffic, you wait for the next location... and it doesn't come.


Dispatchers have many skills, skills that are honed over years of working under these stressful conditions and one of these skills is the ability to know how long is too long when it comes to a Deputies response. As the mental clock ticks, you become more and more concerned. "What's taking so long", you key your head set and you call, "Charlie 30",...no response, you wait a few more seconds, seconds that seem like hours, "Charlie 30" you say, your voice raising. Now not only are you afraid but so is every other person listening to the radio traffic. Has the chase ended? Are they out on foot? Does the Deputy have them at gun point? Or worst of all, has something happened to the Deputy.


After several attempts at trying to raise the pursuing deputy, and your heart sinking, you hear it. The traffic you have dreaded. "Charlie 35, I have arrived 4000 West 5400 South 10-50." Immediately you know what has happened. Two vehicles, one occupied by a person you have been working with for years, that were previously traveling at over 100 miles per hour are now in a twisted heap in an intersection miles away from where you are and there is now little if anything you can do.


As you hear the other Units Arrive it becomes clearer and clearer that something is terribly wrong. "Where is Charlie 30" you think and then you hear it, the sound of a Deputy screaming " send medical."


As the minutes click by you are only able to function because you must. After all, you still have much to do. You must still account for all of the other Units that are arriving, now from all over the valley. You must call for medical and provide as much detail as possible, and you must still hold it together!


Finally the words you wanted, and yet didn't want to hear. "Salt Lake we have 4 victims, 2 are 10-85 delta and 2 charlie minus." Now the reality of the dreadful situation sets in. "This is not good, not good at all", all of the victims are in critical condition and two are possibly fatal. And still no one has bothered to inform you how the Deputy is doing.


There is a phenomenon that occurs in these types of situations. The Deputies and emergency responders on the scene shift into a kind of automation. They know what to do and they are doing it, but for some reason they believe that the dispatchers, perhaps because they are not physically on scene don't need to know exactly what is going on. Because the men and women on the scene can see with there own eyes what is happening they become transfixed and loose sight of the fact that somewhere in a dimly lit room there is a person who is as much a part of the incident as any of them.


This, my friends, is stress. So remember next time you key that microphone, it isn't a light bulb turning on, or a car starting up, it's a human being, a friend, a partner and most importantly a vital part of our family.

The Invisible Mother

As I have never done it before (and may not ever do it again), you know that I'm not one to post emails here. I figure I can just email it to anyone that I deem appropriate, but I'm generally not the biggest fan of mass-forwards to begin with. However, this email was different. The story hit my inbox on a particularly trying day, and knocked the breath out of me with it's simple message of everything I'm doing not being about myself.

I received comments from a few others thanking me because it was something they needed to hear, so I decided to post it here. I hope you like it. I know I will probably refer back to it often because this dose of humbling does my stubborn pride some good to read!

The Invisible Mother

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?' Obviously not.

No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this?

Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going; she's going; she is gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, "I brought you this."

It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: 'To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'

In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:

-No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names.
-These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.
-They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.
-The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, "Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it." And the workman replied, "Because God sees."

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, "I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become."

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, "My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table." That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, "you're gonna love it there."

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

Hope this encourages you when the going gets tough as it sometimes does. We never know what our finished products will turn out to be because of our perseverance.






The west facade of Pisa Cathedral in Pisa, Italy (begun 1093 by unk architect). This is in the same plaza as the famous Leaning Tower, and is a place I hope to visit someday. The website credits Ernie Bello for this photo, and I've linked it to the photo if you'd like further information.