I hollered a choking command, “Get me that hose line up here now!”
It was already being hoisted. The flames were leaping through the hole with vengeance. Grabbing the line, I cracked the nozzle open and shoved it into the opening, knocking down the flames in the immediate area. Shouldering the door with a heave, I forced it open just enough to make entry.
I donned my mask and began systematically searching room to room. Ten years of experience had given me a sketchy mental picture of what my surroundings might look like. The practiced feel of furniture through my thick gloves added to my vision. I was going to have to remember in reverse every move I made, so I could get out, when I found the victim. There’s no if because I wasn’t leaving without her.
I heard moaning. I followed the sound to my left and felt a bedpost. There I found a young woman on the floor against the wall. She was stressed, full of fear and no doubt burned, but she was alive. I scooped her up as quickly and gently as possible.
“I’m gonna get you out of here,” I told her.
Going through the front room, I passed other firefighters who had arrived and were now extinguishing the fire.
“Victim, victim!” I yelled to alert them.
Not wanting to risk a slip and fall on the stairs I handed the young woman to a medic who was on the landing.
I was about to go back in when another firefighter beckoned. “Come on down. You’ve done your job. We’ll take care of the rest.”
Once outside, I tugged away the face-piece to drink in a splendid stream of refreshing night air. “Nice job,” a few of my brother firefighters slapped my shoulder. The lieutenant, a cigar in his hand, acknowledged me with just a nod.
A father had his daughter back alive. I didn’t see him, but it’s my guess that he spoke a volume of appreciation to the chief. I’m told the chief entered the building and began asking the firefighters who made the forced entry, who had knocked down the fire and effected the rescue.
“It was Newman, sir. He did it all.”
I was getting a drink of water when the chief approached. “Newman, fine job; we’re all proud of what you’ve done here. You can expect a medal citation.”
“Thank you, sir!”
My next duty day I was back at Station Eighteen. The guys had all heard about what had taken place, and I was collecting more slaps on the back.
“We heard you did us proud at Sevens. Way to go. Word is you’ll be getting a medal for that.”
I couldn’t help but think, Hmmm, a medal would be nice for my family, but it wouldn’t lift me any higher than I was feeling after having been able to save a life and soothe a father’s agonizing soul. Any firefighter who receives such recognition shares it with all firefighters, and it would bode well for the black firefighters who were being passed over for these awards while whites were getting them for lesser accomplishments. Yes, a medal would be nice.
The problem was the lieutenant didn’t believe in medals for firefighters, especially the Johnny-come-latelys. “Firefighters are sworn to do their duty and they get paid. That’s enough.” Cigar smoke carried the words from his gruff voice to the ceiling.
The captain, my supervising officer, spoke to the lieutenant and told me.
“Well, fellas, I spoke with the lieutenant. I even offered to do the write-up for him, so all he’d have to do is sign it, but he wouldn’t budge. Newman, you deserve it, but there’s nothing more I can do.”
An extra mile . . . up a steeper hill . . . carrying a heavier load. Lord, give me strength!
It is good to appreciate the inherent rewards of doing a job to the best of your ability. All else is icing on the cake. I remember the variety of faces that said, “Fine job.” There is some sweet to the bitter. I retired in 1999 with twenty-five years’ service credit. I have a good measure of health and a grandson.
In March 2002, my little buddy Enson turned twenty-one. He came to me and told me, “Dad, I’ve been thinking, and I’ve decided I want to become a firefighter. I’m going to take the civil service exam next go-round.”
Up until then I had only considered what I was protecting. I hadn’t even considered that I’d been an example for a little boy.
Life surely has its rewards, if not its awards. In that moment God Himself pinned on my Medal of Honor.
Herchel E. Newman
In Sickness and in Health
It’s not the load that breaks you down. It’s the way you carry it.
Lena Horne
When Herman and I took our wedding vows over fifteen years ago, we were committed to our relationship. We became best friends, sharing everything, holding hands, laughing at our mistakes and failures, as well as our triumphs and successes. We liked to go on mini-vacations and often would get away for rest and relaxation. Our honeymoon never ended.
Yet little did we know how much our love for each other would be tested through those five little words we proclaimed in our vows, “In sickness and in health.”
It was January 1990. Herman had just come from a routine visit to his doctor—a trip he had taken for over two decades since his kidney transplant in 1967.
Herman was only seventeen years old when his father unselfishly gave his son the gift of life: one of his kidneys. At the time, Herman was well known on the Centennial High School campus in Compton, California, where he excelled in sports. Baseball was his life, but the transplant ended his dreams of professional success. Even during those trying times, Herman kept his smile.
But on that day in 1990, Herman—whose broad smile and heartfelt laughter always bred celebration—showed terror, hurt and despair, mirroring the feelings in my heart. Without warning, the transplanted kidney had stopped functioning.
Herman began dialysis treatments two months later. A machine substituted for his kidney by purifying his blood three days a week, three to four hours at a time. His smooth muscular arms soon knotted with bulges from the constant needle pricks. His exhausted veins collapsed.
No more unplanned vacations; the dialysis treatments came first. Often passionate lovemaking became cuddling each other to sleep. We found solace in our love and made laughter the key to our survival.
And we prayed for another kidney.
Eleven years later, an unexpected phone call from UCLA Medical Center answered those prayers: “We have a donor.”
Together, we rejoiced and offered more prayers, this time in thanksgiving. But, would it be a match? We waited to hear . . . one hour, two hours, then three. The phone rang again, this time with disappointing news.
Oh, well, we consoled ourselves, we’ve waited this long. Surely we can keep waiting.
One week to the day later, we received another call. It was a perfect match! We anxiously rushed down to UCLA. As we drove, we reflected on all the years of dialysis and how we had prayed for this miracle, and then we cried— happy tears and tears of sorrow. For the other side of our joy was the reality that someone had lost their life to give Herman this opportunity to live.
It was a nineteen-year-old man who had died of head trauma. He had only been eight years old when Herman’s kidney failed. For eleven years we prayed for a perfect match. For that same eleven years this young man had grown up, graduated from elementary, junior high and high school. He was probably in college. It never occurred to us that someone so young would give life to a fifty-one-year-old man. We never thought that the answer to our prayers would be the devastation of someone else’s. How unselfish of his family. Now, instead of praying for a kidney, we pray for this young man’s family.
Throughout the process, I remained at Herman’s side. I learned every medication and followed the prescribed routine for his recovery. Everything else in my life faded. His care was my primary concern.
While he was in the hospital, one nurse remarked on my commitment to my husband. “You have no idea how many people separate and divorce because of the strain on the relationship when dealing with dialysis and transplants,” she told me.
Leave my husba
nd during a time of sickness? Never. I was committed to our vows. More importantly, I could never leave the love of my life!
It’s been a year since the surgery, and Herman is doing well. His body is still recovering, but he is the same happy and joyful person he was when we met. And now we both truly understand that life is precious. We travel again, and we still hold hands and take long walks. We laugh a lot, even when Herman’s recovering body is not up to making love. Our marriage has been sustained by our commitment to love and to cherish each other in sickness and in health.
Dorothy C. Randle
The Letter
To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart.
Phyllis Theroux
I sat at my dining-room table, signing my name to the most difficult letter I’d ever penned. The letter was to my son Luke’s birth mom. This was not the first time I had reached out to the woman whose name I didn’t know. I’d sent several letters over the years with photos of Luke, which the adoption agency had agreed to forward, but had never received a single reply. I didn’t know if Luke’s birth mom had even received my letters.
Please read this letter, I prayed as I folded the paper and slipped it into its envelope. Luke’s life may depend on it.
With four teenagers of our own, my husband Mark and I still felt we had more love to give. And so we adopted Luke, now six.
When Luke was one year old the pediatrician ran a routine blood test: “Your son has sickle-cell disease,” the doctor grimly informed us.
“People die from that!” I gasped.
A gene inherited from both of his birth parents had caused Luke to be born with defective red blood cells, the doctor explained.
“As he grows older Luke will probably suffer anemia and extremely painful swelling in his joints,” the doctor said. “But we can give Luke monthly transfusions of healthy blood to help keep up his strength.”
I thanked God for every healthy day Luke enjoyed. But when Luke was three, he caught a cold and was having trouble breathing. We admitted Luke to the hospital immediately for IV antibiotics.
Luke had acute chest syndrome. Large clumps of sickle-shaped red blood cells were clogging the vessels in his lungs. The blockage was preventing Luke’s blood from getting enough oxygen. This caused further sickling, which led to even more blockage in a vicious cycle that was spiraling dangerously out of control.
I held Luke’s tiny hand while a heart-lung bypass machine struggled to raise his blood-oxygen levels.
Finally, Luke began to rally.
“Luke has been through quite an ordeal, but he is feeling much better now,” I wrote to my son’s birth mom, who, I had learned from the adoption agency, was a single mother of three with little money, struggling to finish her education.
After his crisis Luke’s doctor increased his transfusions from monthly to every third week, but this only forestalled the inevitable. Soon Luke was back in the hospital, fighting once again for his life.
Luke recovered from the second crisis, but I knew it was only a matter of time before my son succumbed to his illness. “Isn’t there anything more we can do?” I begged the doctors.
Then Luke’s hematologist related some exciting news. “There’s a chance Luke’s sickle-cell disease could be cured with a bone-marrow transplant,” he told us. “The new marrow would produce healthy blood cells that wouldn’t carry the sickle-cell disease.”
My heart soared, but it landed with a thud when the doctor inquired, “Do you know if Luke has any siblings?” To perform a transplant, they would have to locate a matching donor. “A blood brother or sister would offer the best hope for a successful antigen match,” the doctor explained.
I anguished over what to do. “Do I even have the right to ask Luke’s birth mother for help?” I asked an adoption agency counselor.
“Luke is your child. You have a right to do whatever it takes to save his life,” the counselor replied without hesitation.
And so I penned a letter describing the situation to Luke’s birth mom. “Would you consider having your other children tested as possible marrow donors?” I wrote. I dropped the letter into the mailbox and then waited and prayed.
Two weeks later the hematologist called. “Luke’s birth mom had her children tested, and I just got the results from her doctor,” he said, excited. “One of them is a 100 percent match, and he can’t wait to become his brother’s marrow donor.”
“She brought him into this world, and now he’ll have a second chance to live a long and happy life,” I told Mark.
The cutting-edge transplant was performed at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor. Luke received eight days of strong chemotherapy to kill off his diseased bone marrow. Meanwhile, many hundreds of miles away, one of Luke’s older brothers visited a local hospital where doctors extracted a few ounces of his healthy bone marrow. The precious cargo was rushed to Michigan, where the doctor used a simple IV line to infuse the life-giving marrow cells into Luke’s bloodstream.
Within weeks, tests revealed that Luke’s new bone marrow was taking hold and already producing healthy red blood cells. Two weeks later Luke was ready to go home, his sickle-cell disease gone forever.
In a letter I shared the happy news with Luke’s birth mom, who this time wrote back:
“I’ve written many letters but never had the courage to mail them. Many times I’ve felt like I did the wrong thing, but now I know it was right. I never could have given Luke the medical attention he needed. Now I know he’s right where God needed him to be. Luke has two families who love him. He’s a very lucky little boy.”
I think I’m the lucky one. I get to watch Luke grow up healthy and strong.
Julane DeBoer
As told to Bill Holton
Previously appeared in Woman’s World
We of One Blood
I savor the memory of that last good day. Can still hear the slapping sounds of red-back Tally Ho’s as they slid across the Formica tabletop in a blizzard of colorful quadrilaterals. Can feel the energy radiating from his eyes as he studied his hand with analytical intensity. And then I saw it. The telltale tucking of his bottom lip, snagged between his teeth in anticipation. Man. He had our butts. It was all over but the shouting.
“Seven,” he said. “No trump.”
He was a Whistologist, of that there was no doubt, but today he was going for broke, playing with a particular fury, risking all wrath and coming this close to going out the dreaded back door. Bidding high and taking his partner out, letting skill and genius rule. He would lead with the big joker today. Today, he would play to win. Play like it was the last game of his life.
He was feeling much better, he said on that last good day. After spending torturous days glued to the bed, soaking his pajamas, soiling his sheets, and retching up his future, he felt like being in the kitchen where all the action was. He wanted to play cards. After all, The Bid was in our blood. Spades was for scrubs, and he was a big dog who never even looked at the porch.
As his eyes scanned the cards, greedily counting books, wagering set-cards, calculating which suits to keep and which to toss back into the kitty, I examined his faded youth. Deep lines creased his brows where mischievous vigor had once dwelled. His flesh hung limply about his cheeks, listless and sagging, its plumpness now all gone. Never one who would pass a paper bag test, his caramel skin had darkened to mocha. And his hair. What could I say? In the beginning, before we’d known, we’d marveled that our kinky-haired brother had suddenly sprouted the baby-fine tresses gently framing his deepening cowlicks. Junior! Boy, how’d your hair get so good? And then we rationalized. Good hair runs on our grandmother’s side, doesn’t it?
What disturbed me most on that last good day, though, were his eyes. Luminous beacons in the sunken recesses of his skull, they had never been more lively, more determined. More accepting, more at peace. More beautiful.
Roaming the surface of the cards, they’d shone with something
that had been sorely missing in our lives during the past year. Something the monster that was AIDS had stolen from us. Something the ever-haunting specter of death had kept us from sharing as we counted down the days and kept a watchful vigil over our cherished, only boy-child. And as he raised his eyes in triumph, filled with confidence that the power he held in his hand would shut my partner and me out and take him and his straight to Boston, the thing I saw shining in my big brother’s eyes, reaching out to touch me and bring comfort to my heart, was given a name.
And its name was hope.
We were both due to leave Brooklyn in two days’ time. Me back to Virginia to deploy further south with my military unit, him back to the city and his rented room on Riverside Drive.
“There’s something I think you should know,” he’d told me a few days earlier, his voice quiet and devoid of its usual humor. This cat never tiptoed anywhere. After all, he was who he was: simple, sweet, unassuming, honest, black and gay. He plunged straight to the bottom line with a single sentence. “There was this guy.”
Whoaa! Not gonna get deep on me, are you?
“I think he might have been married,” he continued, the words falling from his lips straight, no chaser. “He always denied it, so when I found out I was positive I told him to get tested, but he wouldn’t.” He sighed, and for the first time I saw sorrow and remorse creep into his eyes and nearly defeat him. “I don’t know what happened to him. He disappeared. I did everything I knew to contact him. . . . I just thought I should tell somebody about this.”
I know we’re tight and all, but like, isn’t this just waaay too much information?
He repeated. “I just thought somebody should know.”
And it was clear that that somebody was me. He knew my love was strong enough to bear the weight of his guilt. Knew I’d love him regardless. Knew I’d respect him. Regardless.
“I understand,” I answered, and swallowed my share of his pain. Why should he carry that burden by his lonesome? Why should he drag it with him to his grave? I was his sister, and we were bonded. We were of one blood, and nothing he shared with me could have ever changed that. Besides, he was an innocent victim too, refusing to blame or even name his executioner.
Chicken Soup for the African American Soul Page 8