Does Her Death Lead Me to New Life?

A Day in the Life of a Firefighter

We arrive in the high rise building, open by the luck of a window washing maintenance worker on Sunday morning and I think, “Maybe we’ll keep getting lucky.”

We head up to the 20th floor and inside are her partner and two younger children, and we see frantic efforts underway by a lady to save her going on in the bedroom. We start our protocols, checking on our own for a pulse and then continue the compressions. We hook her up to our machine that will give her heart a jolt of electricity if it finds the right chemistry in her heart to proceed….only, it doesn’t.

What does my sweat pouring down over her body as I work frantically to bring her back help me to see?

The 40-ish woman has passed from this life in a haze of Christmas glad tidings and medications that were supposed to help improve her quality of life.

Surely, we look at each other a little differently as we leave hours later. We are thanked by the lady in the apartment, and frantic calls are being made by the deceased’s partner to those disbelieving she’s really gone on the phone. The kids are nowhere to be seen. My Captain says, “Her passing was decided long before we all got here,” to the lady who had been working on her before we got there, trying to offer some encouragement even in these, the worst of circumstances.

And now I’m here, it’s the next day, and I’m reminded of all those that have passed before me. I’m thinking of those who through luck and hard work have made the days count, whose meds did give a better life and of those who made yesterday count while I watched my NFL team lose, spectating on others’ lives.

I’ve got to make each day count! I have to try! Participating, rather than spectating, is the way to go to the grave, whenever that happens, without regrets. I know this today.

It’s the day following the loss of one from this Life.

Join me in changing in 2014!