12 April, 1996, A day which will live in infamy. No, Pearl Harbor didn't get attacked again on that date. It was the day I found out the important people in my life.
The day started like any other. Up at 5:30 or 6:00 am, fix breakfast for Christopher and I, Feed Shep, our dog, and then the triple "S" (shit, shower and shave). I tried to leave for work about 7:00am while I was in the Air Force. I enjoyed walking around the office, drink a cup of coffee or two and prepare for the class I was going to teach that morning. The class I was teaching that morning was yearly "Block Training". It was about 7 or 8 different sections in the class, everything from Self-Aid Buddy care to ejection seat training. 50 minutes of teaching and a 10 minute break every hour. We always had about 40 Airman in class. I had been teaching at that time about 3 years and REALLY had a great deal of fun teaching most days.
I was sitting at my desk, having a debate with another instructor about something and the phone on my desk rang. It was the Sumter County Sheriff's department. They went on to tell me that Christopher was ok but he had shot through his left hand with a small .25 pistol I had stored in an outside shed. I was crushed! I had a #2 pencil in my right hand that I crushed in to 5 pieces when the shock of what I had been told hit me. I was stunned.
I turned my seat around and my boss was standing right there. I told him what had happened and I was off to Tuomey Hospital about as fast as I could go. Truth be told, I went from Shaw AFB to Tuomey Hospital about 80mph all the way down Broad street and didn't get a speeding ticket. The 1991 Ford Escort I had got driven very hard that day.
When I got to the room Christopher was in, I walked in and the first words out of my mouth were "I guess you know you're grounded" The answer he gave me was a weak "yes sir". He was 12 years old. For as much as I was about half mad, I was 100% heart broken seeing my only child suffering so. I had been given that .25 pistol by a guy because I helped him fix his car and he had a small child in his house and didn't need a gun around the house. When I got it home, I took the magazine and bullets out of the gun, and I let Christopher look at it because I KNEW he liked guns. He always has liked guns. I also told him NOT to touch that gun unless I let him and I was with him and I remember telling him that 3 different times.
Well, he had broken my rule about that and he was paying for it in a big way AND he was grounded....not a good day for my kid.
It was a comedy of errors as to how my son came to have my pistol in his hand and it came to be loaded. I usually kept the gun in the outside shed and the bullets and magazine in the house, away from each other. Seems I had a neighbor who was a drug dealer and an alcoholic and he was rarely sober most days. The weekend before he had been in his front yard, yelling and screaming up a storm and he wasn't shy about who he talked to or about what he talked about....he was a really messed up guy. He seemed to be trying to engage me in conversation about something or other....... Trust me on this, you can't talk to anyone who is drunk or high.....it just doesn't work well. I had a feeling he might try to come raise cane in my front yard. I got the gun from the shed, the magazine from my nightstand and I loaded the pistol and put in my pocket. If he decided to bring his conversation in my yard, I was going to blow his kneecap clean off..... Well, as the day wore on, my drunk/high neighbor finally went back into his house and I put the gun back in the shed BUT I didn't remove the magazine from the pistol and I didn't remove the bullet from the chamber I had ready to shoot if it came to that.....I had never shot that weapon and knew that it was darn near brand new and was mostly unused.
Christopher told me he climbed up on the freezer and removed the gun from an old wok I had purchased someplace. He said he was trading it from his right hand to his left hand when it went off. After the bullet went through his hand, it lodged in the wooden door facing of the shed. God blessed my son that morning. For all he had done wrong, he then proceeded to walk back in the house, stop the bleeding on his hand, call 911, walked out in the front yard to flag down the sheriff when he missed the house. I'm not sure an adult could have kept it together quite so good.
It all turned out well in the end. The hospital patched him up and we told him to tell his friends he had his hand slammed in a car door and leave it at that if anyone ask about his hand. It made me realize that for as hard as a child is to raise some days, it really did hurt my heart to see him hurting, no matter what the reason.
He really didn't get grounded. When he came back home and saw the trail of blood on the carport and in the kitchen, he lost it in a way I had never seen him breakdown before. I remember walking into the living room and he was still crying a bit and I told him....."I've never seen you this tore up about anything, you aren't grounded, go be a 12 year old and play with Shep. Go be a kid, we will work out some sort of punishment later on".....It just seemed to me that he was hurting enough between his ears and I didn't need to pile any more hurt on him. The punishment I worked out was I made him draw a picture of Bugs Bunny as the King of England out of a Looney Tunes book I had. He was/is a really good artist. Its a beautiful drawing and I still have it and it is the one thing I have from Christopher that is very special to me, besides my granddaughters....
12 April, 1996 wasn't a great day but I found out how much I loved my kid, even if he did do something stupid....he might have made a stupid mistake, but he was ALIVE and very lucky.
Having never shot that pistol, I took it out in my back yard a few days later and shot it at a pine tree just to see how loud it was. I was outside and my ears rang a bit.....I can only imagine the noise of the shot, the shock of being hurt and my son still had the presents of mind to help himself get help at the house. I guess when the chips are down you really don't realize how able you might be until you are under pressure. I'm sure it wasn't easy for him. I was very proud of how he kept his head screwed on straight even after the confusion of such an accident.
The pistol is in a bunch of pieces now and I've never put it back together or shot it again.....I still have it but it will stay in pieces.....because of one day, a very long time ago.
Thanks Christopher for allowing me to write this.....I'm not sure why it was on my mind. Love you!
J.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Pushing myself forward.
I have been a lot of places and seen a lot of things in the past 50 years and 8 months. I've lived my dream and followed in my Dad's foot steps. I could not ask for more in my life. However, during that time I've turned into a person that doesn't trust strangers and holds everyone at arm's length until I reach a level of comfort. I'm not happy about it. The reason I'm not happy about it is this: You get out of any situation what you put into any situation. If I'm giving mistrust or mistrustful vibes around new people or in new places, I'll get back mistrust from these new situations.
I often don't speak to people I walk by in the morning because I don't think they would want to talk to me or I can't understand why they might want to talk to me. I feel that I'm one of the nameless, faceless crowd. Part of the background noise of life rushing by at great speed. My holding back from pushing forth the effort to be at least cordial to people I don't know makes me miss out on the story these people's lives have to tell. Every one of us has a story to tell with our lives and I'm fascinated with people and what drives them or pushes them to do what they have done with themselves.
I'll admit that once I get in my comfort zone with another person, I'll talk your ear off, I would darn near give you the shirt off my back if you needed it. I'm not "unfriendly". I don't go out of my way to do harm to people I don't know but I also don't go out of my way to say "hello" to them either. I usually let people I don't know speak to me first or make the first interaction with me.
Even on Facebook, I'm a bit standoffish.....my "About you" information states "Just because I know you or attended school with you doesn't mean I will automatically befriend you on Facebook. If I don't know you somehow other than Facebook, there is a better than average chance I won't befriend you on Facebook in most cases." I have caught flack about that statement more than once from more than one person. My whole point of all of that is this: Just because we spent 11 or 12 years walking the hallowed halls of our esteemed public school but we really didn't have a "relationship" of any type beyond that does not a friendship make! You have to be a friend of an Facebook friend to even see the friendship button on my Facebook page! In my mind, there is a difference between being an acquaintance and being a true friend. Some people don't get that simple concept.....
I often don't speak to people I walk by in the morning because I don't think they would want to talk to me or I can't understand why they might want to talk to me. I feel that I'm one of the nameless, faceless crowd. Part of the background noise of life rushing by at great speed. My holding back from pushing forth the effort to be at least cordial to people I don't know makes me miss out on the story these people's lives have to tell. Every one of us has a story to tell with our lives and I'm fascinated with people and what drives them or pushes them to do what they have done with themselves.
I'll admit that once I get in my comfort zone with another person, I'll talk your ear off, I would darn near give you the shirt off my back if you needed it. I'm not "unfriendly". I don't go out of my way to do harm to people I don't know but I also don't go out of my way to say "hello" to them either. I usually let people I don't know speak to me first or make the first interaction with me.
Even on Facebook, I'm a bit standoffish.....my "About you" information states "Just because I know you or attended school with you doesn't mean I will automatically befriend you on Facebook. If I don't know you somehow other than Facebook, there is a better than average chance I won't befriend you on Facebook in most cases." I have caught flack about that statement more than once from more than one person. My whole point of all of that is this: Just because we spent 11 or 12 years walking the hallowed halls of our esteemed public school but we really didn't have a "relationship" of any type beyond that does not a friendship make! You have to be a friend of an Facebook friend to even see the friendship button on my Facebook page! In my mind, there is a difference between being an acquaintance and being a true friend. Some people don't get that simple concept.....
Even this blog can't be searched for with Google. A stranger couldn't find this blog if they tried. I must think it is worth something because I keep writing it but I hide my "light under a basket" and cheat myself from the blessings I might get from writing this blog!
The only exception I've made to that Facebook friends rule has to do with people who might know about my family tree or if I can help them with their family tree OR the members of the ZL-OA motorcycle form OR you have to be Varda Epstein. Varda is a friend of a friend (you know who you are Susan McElvanney). I admire Varda and her husband, Dov. More than anyone else I know, Varda and Dov live their convictions on a daily basis. They put their "money where their mouth is" so to speak. Varda's blog is a good one The guys at ZL-OA have helped me when they didn't know me and I've been able to give help back to people who are trying to keep an almost 30 year old motorcycle running. They have given without expectation of getting anything back from me and I have given to them without the expectation of getting anything back from them.
These actions (or lack of actions) has to stop. I can't go on living life shutting out most of the people I'm around. It isn't normal and it isn't healthy for my spirit or my spiritual life going forward. Life is an effort and I'm going to have to put forth the effort to stop holding the world at arm's length.
I need to push myself forward until being "friendly" becomes my comfort zone.
I need to show a side of myself that is "of good cheer" on a daily basis so people can see the Lord in my life. I need to put my best foot forward, not because I "have to" but because it is the RIGHT thing to do. As the Bible says in Galatians 5:22 and 23
Wish me luck.
J.
These actions (or lack of actions) has to stop. I can't go on living life shutting out most of the people I'm around. It isn't normal and it isn't healthy for my spirit or my spiritual life going forward. Life is an effort and I'm going to have to put forth the effort to stop holding the world at arm's length.
I need to push myself forward until being "friendly" becomes my comfort zone.
I need to show a side of myself that is "of good cheer" on a daily basis so people can see the Lord in my life. I need to put my best foot forward, not because I "have to" but because it is the RIGHT thing to do. As the Bible says in Galatians 5:22 and 23
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.I must move forward from this point. Now is the time, today is the day and I am the loser if I don't accomplish this task in my life.
Wish me luck.
J.
Monday, July 8, 2013
UPDATE: Sometimes you read something that lets you know your life is doing Okay. This was one of those time.
UPDATE:
We have received information from Stephanie MacMurray and she has found a way to get to her son's home for his funeral. I don't have much more information than that at this time. I will update this post as more information is given to Randi and I.
I follow a group on Facebook that is dedicated to PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder) and a woman had posted:
Randi and I are both wracking our brains trying to share this with someone or some group that might be able to help.
J.
We have received information from Stephanie MacMurray and she has found a way to get to her son's home for his funeral. I don't have much more information than that at this time. I will update this post as more information is given to Randi and I.
I follow a group on Facebook that is dedicated to PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder) and a woman had posted:
After reading that, my problems weren't that big any more. I just had a hangnail when compared to this person. I cried, I wrote my Preacher and I just wanted to beat my fist against the wall that "the system" had failed this woman.
Randi and I are both wracking our brains trying to share this with someone or some group that might be able to help.
J.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)