Death's First Visit

  Having had the experience with near death, saving the life of my Mother, it was time for death to impact my life. Five years after the experience of cheating death the angel of death showed me the way a life is taken. It was not a stranger that died in the summer of 1974, it happened twice to personal relationships. The first happened to a good friend's father. Randy, who at the age of fifteen was a close friend that had a Mother and Father old enough to be his grandparents. Randy was a mistake when he was born. When I say mistake I mean that his parents did not plan to have a child in their 'golden years.' Randy had a nephew that was older than him. Anyway, Randy, his Father, brother-in-law and I, were shrimping in the Mobile Bay. Harvey, Randy's Father, Hinky, the brother-in-law, Randy, and myself had been out on the bay for several hours when Randy decided he was ready to go back to his Sister's house. Harvey, Hinky, not his real name, and I was not ready to give it up. Arrangements were made for Randy to be picked up at the marina so we could finish shrimping. We stayed another two hours before we decided we better quit before fish and game stopped us and found out we were way over the limit for non-commercial shrimping. As we were putting the boat up on the trailer I looked over at Harvey standing up against the truck. He had a far away look in his eyes. After cranking the boat up against the trailer stop and locking it down I looked over to get Harvey to help me but he was not standing where he was a few minutes ago. I jumped down off the trailer and saw Harvey lying on his back with an abrasion over his left eye. I ran over to him and I knew immediately that something was terribly wrong. I started yelling for Hinky when a woman from the next slip over came to help Harvey. She started CPR and someone called an ambulance. I later learned that the woman was a registered nurse. I knew without a doubt that he was dead. He was. It was rough on Randy's whole family. Seeing what the nurse had done gave me the desire to go into medicine. I was fascinated with seeing what the nurse was doing to try and defeat death. I had found my calling. That desire would be questioned the following October when an event happened that rocked my world.   to be cont.......   theblogmeister