Pain (July 2011)

I have a boo boo and it hurts. I hurts real bad. This is the kind of hurt that is going to sting for a very long time. Honestly, I’m not sure how I’m even able to handle it. I try to stay occupied, so I don’t have to think about it. You know, ignore it and it will go away.
I’m usually pretty good about controlling this sort of stuff, but not so much this time. When the pain comes on, it’s often out of no where, blind siding me with such ferocity that I literally have to concentrate on breathing. A good friend reminded me today that it’s like everything we do: ABC’s, airway, airway, airway. Keep breathing…
So I do. And with a little help from a lot of friends, I can see the pain subsiding, some. Not always, but enough that I am reminded that to bottle this kind of raw energy would be very self-destructive. To try and harness the emotions and pain I am feeling would cause damage that would be sustained and permanent.
So I talk. I talked, and then talked some more. I weep. I sob, I cry; and I do all the things in between. Sometimes I sit and stare, hoping and praying beyond reason that the clock will turn back and things will go back the pre-pain era. It doesn’t happen.
When I went to bed after hearing the news, I prayed like never before that I would wake to find it had been a nightmare and the pain would be gone; or at least at a level that would allow me to perform at some level near normalcy. A very unexpected thing happened: I awoke to a deeper pain than I have ever experienced. A pain like no other I have ever felt. A pain unimaginable to those who have never felt it.
It wasn’t long before the word spread and the true brotherhood of the fire service showed. Men I have worked next to for many years; men I have witnessed gruesome tragedies with; men I have never seen shed tears during some very trying times arrived at my house. I was in pain, and they came to share my burdens and hold me while we cried.
I often hear speak of the “brotherhood” and I honestly think the term may be overused, or perhaps inappropriately applied, but I am here to tell you, the Brotherhood is alive and well in my neck of the woods. The actions of my Brothers are helping me to survive the loss my brother…