When Fear Takes Over

Psalm 18:2 tells us, “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer” (NIV). At some point in all of our lives, we will most likely come face to face with fear. We will need the knowledge in Psalm 18:2 when we do.

And despite the fact that we may know God is with us, we still must decide what to do with our fear. A car accident. A storm. A trauma. A loss. How do you move on? Psalm 46:1-3 says, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” (NIV). God is with us in our fear. And God will help lead us as we navigate the repercussions of that fear.

Here is my story about fear and the choices I made as a result.

***

Martin is an average-size man. Thin. He is married. When asked about children, he says they have tried but do not have any. I tell him my own infertility story, which includes adoption. In his very broken English, he explains that he would like to adopt, but adoption takes money. I have no response.

His shoes are torn. He carries a simple dive bag. He has a mustache. A big smile. He is happy. As he gathers our group of seven around him on the boat in Cozumel for our first dive, he nods in Nelly´s direction. “My English . . . not so good,” he says to the group. Then he turns to Nelly. “Nelly will be my translator if you cannot understand.”

Nelly smiles. It´s an infectious smile. She has curly brown hair and beautiful eyes. She explains that Spanish is her first language. She learned English in her late teens. She is a pediatrician who lives in Florida with her husband and two adopted sons. She is a new diver just like me.

***

We are sitting in a room. The six of us who were in Nelly´s dive group. The six of us and Martin. Instead of Nelly being there with us, her sister sits in her place. She is crying. Someone hands her a tissue. Then another.

I had joined my husband in Mexico for a week away, leaving our two little boys home with the grandparents. John, my husband, was there for a medical conference. We were a bunch of doctors and their spouses vacationing together interspersed with learning.

Nelly’s sister tells us she is here in an attempt to find closure and to bring that closure back to Nelly’s husband and two young sons.

And so we go back and recount the events leading up to Nelly’s death.

***

I can vividly picture Nelly sitting in a chair next to the dock, waiting for our boat to pull up. We had done two successful dives on Wednesday. Now it was Thursday.

Thursday was the last day Nelly would be alive.

As we began our dive descent, I remember being awestruck by the beauty I witnessed. It was as if we were descending into the deep end of a huge pool. It was gorgeous. I had never desired to scuba dive. I had learned because my husband had wanted to share this with me. But I had to admit that I was enjoying the adventure.

My husband and I were the first to surface after the dive. A storm was rolling in. “Look at the sky,” John said as the waves picked up. A few more minutes passed and then Nelly joined us at the surface.

She looked panicked. She told us she had run out of air. I inflated her vest, which meant she had air in her tank. I remember that her cheeks seemed to get more flushed with every second that passed. I took her hand and began stroking her arm and talking to her.

Martin came to the surface. I don’t remember how we communicated with him that something was wrong with Nelly, but we did. He immediately swam over to her. They began conversing in Spanish.

We saw our boat in the distance. It had completed its retrieval of the other dive group and was heading our way. I kept talking to Nelly, who would nod or give me a sidelong look and try to provide me with a smile.

The boat arrived. The crew threw us a rope. It was at this point that I got scared. While Nelly was able to grab the rope, I remember that her face looked blue. She asked me to hold her hand again. We had gotten separated a bit amidst the attempt to all hold onto the rope. I offered her some encouraging words. And she nodded.

My words would be the last ones she ever heard.

Nelly made it onto the first stair of the ladder. I remember feeling that the timing of this storm was so bad. The boat was going up and down with incredible force. She tried to get to the second stair.

And then she passed out.

Somehow the men in our group managed to get her now lifeless body into the boat.

As I worked my way up the ladder, I could see Nelly lying face down. It was at that second that I heard someone say, “So are we starting CPR?” A woman rolled Nelly over with Martin’s help and began chest compressions.

My husband was running the code. The other docs were rotating chest compressions. Martin was doing mouth-to-mouth. A trauma surgeon would even manage to intubate her amidst the ferocious waves.

The only time I was valuable during the next thirty minutes, as we sped toward some unknown dock where an ambulance was waiting, was when they took Nelly off the boat. The boat was still rocking like crazy, and we formed a line to help move the stretcher onto land.

The ambulance sped off. And we stood there. In the rain. On the boat. Not knowing what to do next.

Two hours later, John wandered onto our hotel’s porch where I was attempting to read on our hammock. When he said, “Hey,” to me and turned the hammock so that I was facing him, I knew that Nelly was dead.

***

After Nelly’s sister wandered, bleary-eyed, back to her room, John and I walked back to the lobby with Martin. His eyes were filled with tears. “I was thinking of opening my own dive shop soon,” he said. “But now, I don’t think I can. I think maybe this was a sign. I think I need to stop diving.”

The fear was crawling over him. It was holding him. His shoulders slumped. He was shifting from foot to foot. He did not know how to process what happened to him.

And that is the crux of this whole story.

When fear takes over and an event threatens to destroy something you love, you must decide what to do with that fear. In my case, I had grown up in Fort Lauderdale around water. I loved water. The pool and the beach were a part of me. But scuba diving was not part of my make-up.

But for Martin, diving was integral. Diving was Martin’s livelihood. Giving it up would severely impact his life.

My husband is an emergency medicine doctor. He sees trauma nearly every day. He is wise. As the events surrounding Nelly’s death unfolded, he knew that fear would be a threat in the aftermath. He told me that he would not make me dive, but we were going snorkeling. He knew that fearing the water would impact my life. So the morning after the accident, we snorkeled.

But as Martin hugged my husband in the hallway that night, John said to him, “You and I are going diving tomorrow.”

And they did. Our entire group went back out on the water with Martin and took a dive with him. They threw a wreath on the spot where Nelly spent her last moments.

After that, I chose to never dive again.

I learned in the midst of this tragedy that fear can hold you back from things you love. And you must decide what you are willing to give up. I could give up diving. Martin could not. And I refused to give up water.

What event has you frozen? What have you given up because of your fear? What is reasonable to give up? And what is too big of a request?

Deuteronomy 31:8 says, “He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

In the rain, in the storms, God is there. Reach out. Get counseling. Seek advice. Listen. And don’t let fear stop you from doing the things you love.

Wendi Kitsteiner is a former city girl now living on a farm in the middle of nowhere, Tennessee with her husband and four young children. She is passionate about the causes of infertility, adoption, and keeping it real as a mom. You can follow her at flakymn.blogspot.com or becauseofisaac.org.

Photograph © Anastasia Taioglou, used with permission