- In
Dedication and Gratitude
- to
the brave rescue workers, including our best friends on four legs,
- who
risked ~ and gave ~ their lives on September 11, 2001.
'Twas about 2 weeks before Christmas, 1992. The radio call was for an
unconscious male.
I bolted through the front door of the house and ran up the
stairs, relying on the directions given me by frantically pointed fingers. I got to the
top floor, went through the doorway of the bedroom and found him. My patient lay in bed
with the covers pulled up to his armpits, his arms resting at his sides and his eyes
closed. I bent down, put my cheek close to his nose and open mouth and watched his chest:
he wasn't breathing. Checked his pulse nothing. He was not unconscious; he was dead. But
wait! His skin was still warm. He was still savable I COULD DO THIS!
"What do you need me to do, Dan?" was the question from
one of my two firehouse friends who accompanied me. "Help me get him off the
bed," I said quietly but with urgency. In all my years with the Volunteer Fire
Department and the Volunteer Ambulance, I'd never performed CPR outside of a classroom
setting. But, my mind was methodical, going from one step to the next, without hesitation.
I'd practiced this so often over the course of thirteen years that I had the whole thing
down. My friend and I had him on the floor in less than a second. I heard the call for
further assistance: "EMT on the scene CPR in progress ALS response requested,
forthwith!!!"
Just as I was about to give the first breaths and start
compressions, I heard a scream so fierce, it stopped me cold. I looked over my right
shoulder and saw, in the corner of the stairs, a woman who might have been his daughter.
Behind clenched fists, her eyes were brown and filled with the kind of fear that freezes
the soul. I saw the memories of times with Daddy, all the hopes for the future and the
helplessness that comes when it is all snapped away.
My priorities changed; I no longer wanted to save him ~ I had to.
I performed CPR on this man for no less than 45 minutes straight. From the first
compression, I was committed to saving him. I breathed only so as to blow air into his
lungs and soaked my clothes in sweat, all the while telling myself he was savable, that I
could do this and asking God to not let me be wrong in either assertion. He never came
back.
No matter how hard I tried to tell myself I did everything right
and that God needed him back for some new mission; I still couldn't escape the nightmares,
which led to almost two weeks of sleepless nights. I prayed for his soul and celebrated
Christmas with my family, knowing at least one family would not be gathering without
melancholy.
Fast forward five years to May 1997. I had been spending the
better part of my life looking for purpose, guidance and fulfillment on a deeper level.
I'd sought the words and comfort of relatives, friends, priests, teachers, clubs, social
groups, girlfriends, jobs, but nothing worked. While every one of those things stimulated
me or offered me a distraction, they never came close to filling the emptiness inside.
While talking with my friend, I'd realized that the problem may
indeed be that I was trying to fill my inner emptiness with things that surrounded me in
my life, physical things mostly. Maybe I already had the answers inside me. I just needed
to be shown how to access them. This is exactly what Ascension offered, so I went to a
weekend First Sphere class.
I began my journey into the Praise Attitude of the First Sphere.
I felt myself drifting, yet knew full well I was laying on the floor. I could feel my
blood coursing through every blood vessel in my body. The thrushing sound was almost
deafening, but I could hear something else. It was the voice of my friend calling to me,
"Danny, can you hear me?" Later, I confirmed that as I heard her voice, she had
just begun to Ascend and had projected that very question.
We then learned the Second Attitude of the First Sphere
Gratitude. After the lesson, I laid back down on the floor and let Gratitude take me where
it wished. I found myself floating again. But this time, I did feel weightless.
Christmas, 1992. I could see it all again. The whole scenario. I
was actually having "a Vision!" There I was, stooped over the patient,
performing CPR. I'm doing compressions, committed to saving his life. Suddenly though, his
eyes snap open. He turns his head to me, looks me straight in the eyes then speaks:
"Thank you for trying," he simply says. I was on the verge of tears for the rest
of the night.
I still seek inner fulfillment and nothing still comes close. But
I am just slightly quieter in my soul now. I never knew how much that first CPR call
affected me or how deeply until Ascension class... five years later. I hope to go to
another Ascension class one day. If not, I will always have that moment in my life when I
touched eternity.
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