Once upon a time, I was saved by firefighters.

It was about 20 years ago. I was eight; my sister was three. The month was January — a time for rain. In Southern California rain doesn’t fall regularly, so when it falls it wreaks havoc on land not accustomed to soaking it in. This means flash floods and mudslides, or any number of other things.

My favorite uncle and his family lived in Spring Valley back then. Whenever our family went to visit them it meant a lengthy trip south, on roads that eventually led down, past a swap meet — where there was a severe dip in the road over or through some kind of drainage ditch — and up again.

Sometimes the road through the ditch had water running across it, like some kind of urban babbling brook. We’d blithely drive through it with a splash, which often made my sister and me smile with excitement. From time to time, especially after a rain, the little brook across the road would be bigger, and my parents would drive through it a little more slowly but still with a lot of splash.

One night, my uncle threw a party that lasted into the wee hours of the morning. My Navy father was away, so my mother, my sister, and I made the trip that night without him. It had been raining regularly for days, so the brook was a lot bigger than usual. We drove through it very slowly and without incident on the way to the party, our big yellow and white van pushing through the water like some sport utility vehicle.

But it must have rained again as we celebrated indoors at my uncle’s house because, when we arrived at the dip in the road at two in the morning on the way back home, the brook had become a full-sized river. The water level was higher than we had ever seen it — at least twice as high as in our last trip through it and probably about half the height of our van, which (as tall as the van was) barely fit in our garage. The temporary river also ran nearly twice as fast, the audible currents roaring and strong.

My mother slowed the van to a stop at the edge of the water, most likely wondering whether or not she should go ahead and drive through it; with the night so dark and the river so muddy, we couldn’t see the bottom — or the actual dip in the road — so it was hard to tell just how deep the water was. I imagine that she viewed the whole tableau of moving water with trepidation because none of us could swim, and she didn’t know the area well enough to find another way back home. Whatever went through her mind, she decided to gamble, to take that leap of faith that everything would be all right, and she proceeded to drive the van into the river.

I remember feeling excited about it. Silly me — I thought it was going to be another slicing, splashing trek through the water. Even when the van finally stopped in the middle and refused to budge, I felt confident that we’d pull through. It was only after my mother tried and tried again to get the van to go, and after she muttered and begged frantically under her breath, that I began to realize that something was wrong.

The van wasn’t moving forward; we were in the middle of the river; and the water, now reaching more than halfway up my door to the closed window and rocking the van from left to right as it rushed against the passenger side, was cold and seeping into the van, soaking the carpet and interior.

My mother began pounding on the horn, trying to capture someone’s — anyone’s — attention. At two o’clock in the morning no one else was on the road, and there weren’t any houses nearby. She ordered my sister and me to sit in the back on the stretched out hide-away bed and be still. I remember sloshing through the water towards the back of the van, holding my schoolbag up to keep it from getting wet, as my mother found a flashlight to signal for help. I watched her wave that thing futilely in between her continual honking of the horn and calls for help. Beside me, my sister cried and cried.

After a long while, my mother gave up calling for help and began looking around the van for something else — a rope which she clutched in her hands like a talisman. Her eyes shining with tears of panic and frustration, she told my sister and me to start praying because we all might get pulled downriver and be lost to the world. Let me tell you, that was the least reassuring thing anyone could have told me; I think that’s when I started to cry, too.

Still, my mother tried to get us out of the situation. She opened the driver’s side door and surveyed the water rushing off into the night. She checked the door and the rope for sturdiness, looked across the river at the edge, and thought.

I can only imagine what she planned for us, and I can be thankful that she never needed to carry the plan out. Across the river on dry ground, someone finally called out to us about getting us help, and my mother responded.

I don’t remember what was said or how long we waited after that, but I remember being pulled from the back of the van by a firefighter, whose warmth seemed to surround me as he hoisted me atop a large fire engine truck, and from that vantage point the water didn’t seem like such a menace and the whole world seemed harmless and small. A man’s face appeared in front of me, large and smiling, and a deep voice asked if I was okay.

Mute, I nodded. Then, in a panic, I called for my schoolbag.

“Don’t worry. We’ve got it.” It was the smiling voice again, and the bag was placed gently on my lap. I felt such relief that I don’t know if I ever said thank you…

And the next thing I remember is waking up warm and dry in my uncle’s house — the morning sun shining through the windows, and the previous night something out of a dream. Later, I would see the van parked outside, its lower half ruined by the stain of water and soggy undergrowth, plant life still sticking out from underneath.

Young as I was, I didn’t understand exactly what went on and how lucky we were, but I found out more than 15 years later that my mother did. Every year, around January, she writes the fire department in Spring Valley a letter of thanks.

20 years later, it’s way past time I did the same.

To all the firefighters then and now, in Spring Valley and elsewhere, you have my everlasting gratitude. Thank you for being there…

…for me, for my family, for everyone.

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