Fireman sacrifices his health to save a baby, later wonders if he did the right thing.
From an unpublished collection called "True Stories"
"In the back," the mother screamed, "he's in the back." My husband saved a baby from a building about to collapse, flames at all the windows. He crawled under smoke as thick as walls, furniture on fire, grabs this child from a crib.
Staggers out coughing, then fainted. Partial disability from that date on.
His picture was in every paper. A genuine hero. We need them. My husband had the look, the attitude. "It wasn't nothing special," he said. But we both knew he gave five years off his life.
The baby grew up to be no good. A thief and then a hoodlum. It's a small town. We know. The last rumor is that he killed a man over drugs.
My husband's retired now, not in good shape. I hear him coughing, know he has to wonder: maybe he should have let the little bastard burn.
It certainly could've worked out the other way around. We don't hear the stories like this as much as the ones that miraculously turn out very good over time.
My great uncle was a Fire Chief in a medium-sized. His third wife told me that he had a kind of "black lung" from fighting fires. Still, he managed to live well in retirement right up until he died at 98. Most folks would like that kind of black lung.
On the other hand, my sister-in-law's father was a fireman in our hometown. Shortly after he retired around 65, he needed a lung and heart transplant, but didn't get one and didn't last very long. His wife is still alive in her 90s.
If we could decipher what lay ahead of us and the people (infants) around us, there would be a lot of poor little babies not rescued from a burning hell.
From the author of Jupiter Remembered and Until It’s Time: Embracing Life In Our Later Years comes Petals of Love: Poetry of a Woman’s Soul – a heartfelt collection spanning more than thirty-five years. Through tender reflections, these poems offer g
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poignant read
My great uncle was a Fire Chief in a medium-sized. His third wife told me that he had a kind of "black lung" from fighting fires. Still, he managed to live well in retirement right up until he died at 98. Most folks would like that kind of black lung.
On the other hand, my sister-in-law's father was a fireman in our hometown. Shortly after he retired around 65, he needed a lung and heart transplant, but didn't get one and didn't last very long. His wife is still alive in her 90s.
Ron