Moving Day

 Moving day draws friends.

Dive team members were moving equipment and needed help.  Boxes, crates and watercraft stirred questions.  "What's this?" I asked.

A folded quilt, made of mesh (think an onion bag) stuck out of the box.  Half a dozen identically unopened boxes awaited the officer's reply.

"That's a body bag, sir.  We go through them like breakfast cereal."  

When rescue efforts involuntarily become recovery operations, finding submerged people is the goal.  Once located, respectful handling of the remains includes:

1. submerging the bag
2. enveloping the person's body
3. closing the bag
4. extracting the person's body.

Divers' body bags are opaque.  Upon extraction, onlookers see nothing except a dripping mesh sleeve.  Recovering dead people, however, requires the officers to see and feel, underwater.

Most of the recoveries happen in muddy rivers and lakes.  Visibility is poor, therefore workers feel their way through silt and murk.  Touching a dead body may trip the reader's recoil reflex.  A police officer, however, has to be able to zero in and stay in contact long enough to bag the body.

A variety of marine life are drawn to decomposition.

 In muddy, murky and cold obscurity officers are going through body bags like breakfast cereal.  People fall off bridges, run off roads and drown.  Falling through ice is common.  

"Can you say more?" I asked.

On moving day, out came one of the officer's stories.  Note: When someone 'says more', remember to say less.  Prayer helps.

"Speak Holy Spirit," was my silent prayer next to a storytelling rescuer.  Scripture assures there is a friend who sticks closer than a sibling.  

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. ~ Proverbs 17:17

Any friendliness the diver found in me was the result of Christ's presence in the dive garage.  The Holy Spirit enveloped the moment, zipped my mouth and allowed the professional to be heard.  I listened, as a friend might, because I was empowered by the Mighty Good Friend.

Moving day draws friends.