Catholic Singles

Life
BY: MARK ANTHONY ROSOLOWSKI

I look at my hands, the hands that God, ha blessed with the ability to help others, the ability to save lives. I have called on that ability numerous times in my life, from cradling an injured child, assisting a woman as she gives birth, resuscitating a person whose heart has stopped or comforting a person who cannot be rescued as they pass from this earth.

I have assisted numerous people, I have saved lives, but those are not the ones that stand out in my mind. I have received awards, certificates, citations and other honors for rescuing or saving people but these are the ones I have forgotten.

The ones I remember are of the 3 year old, who walked out to his backyard in February and fell into the in the ground pool, he was not discovered until it was too late. I dream of the efforts we made to get this young life back. I see my partner and I diving into the pool, algae covered water to save his life, I can still taste the water that entered my mouth, and I can still smell the odor of the stagnant water. I see as we pull him out of the water, I see and hear his mother, she is hysterical, I see how we worked on this young life, I see the Emergency Department staff doing all they can, I can still hear the doctor pronounce him dead, I feel the life drain out of me as I slip into a chair I look at my hands and weep.

November 16, 1989, a tornado hit a school, a cafeteria wall collapses. There are 120 students in the cafeteria eating lunch as the wall collapses, 7 children parish in the incident, many more survive but are injured. The community thanked the Emergency Medical Services, the Police and the Fire Departments, for the rescue efforts and for the lives saved. At the end of the day, I go home, hold my children tight, thanking God that they were not in harms way. As I sit in my recliner, I look at my hands and weep.


March of 2008, I see my wife lying in the bed, it has almost 20 years since I worked as a Paramedic, I left the field with an injury, but I think the real reason I left, was that I no longer had the wall. The wall is an invisible wall that surrounds the heart of all EMS workers, so we can do our job and not feel the anguish or the pain, my wall has been gone for these 20 years. I never was able to build the wall back, it is gone forever. As I sit there, I see the faces of all the people I have saved, they walk past me in my mind, in these images everyone says thank you, as they did when I was there for them. As my wife of 28 years passes away, I look at my hands; there is nothing I can do to save her. All the people that I have saved and I cannot save her, I weep as she dies.

What good was the gift God had bestowed upon me if I cannot save a loved one, at night the answer came to me: I see the children I helped, with children of their own, laughing and playing. I see an elderly couple, who when they were younger, I rescued them from a car accident. I see the babies, I assisted in the delivery of, they are happy smiling young adults, and one is working to find a cure for cancer.

The answer to my question was: It is not what you were unable to that is important; it is what you were able to do.