I called and left my son a message last night. "Call me back. We have some issues we need to talk about." The issues? Paula and I had just gotten back from seeing the new movie, "Ladder 49," a thriller about the life of a Baltimore firefighter.
It was a fanciful and yet not unrealistic account of the dangers firefighters confront every time they get the call to don the uniform and race off into the night to fight a fire.
Dangers that exceed the tolerance levels most of us care to endure - or even contemplate.
My son is a firefighter in the city of Roanoke.
My call to him was intended to be one in which I was going to tell him of our concern for his life, for the well-being of his wife and our grandchildren, and - somehow - to convey to him how proud of him we are. Without giving away the plot in any way, the overriding message from the movie is this: We are prepared to sacrifice our lives to save others. The pay is not great. The dangers are real. And the call to action is frequent and ever-present.
I got his answering machine. So I left him a mildly humorous "I just found out what it is that you do for a living; you will resign from the force first thing in the morning" kind of message.
When not fighting fires, my son also serves as an Emergency Medical Technician. I heard that he lost a man the other day to an apparent heart attack. They were communicating with each other as the ambulance was racing to the nearby hospital but the man lapsed into unconsciousness despite my son's best efforts at cardiac resuscitation and that of the hospital emergency medical personnel. They were unable to revive the man. I haven't talked to him in recent days and I don't know any of the particulars. But the man's death weighed on him. And it was only one of many calls he responded to that day. One of many, many days. A day like so many others.
I recommend the movie. Be prepared for lots of action, some sorrow, and excitement throughout. And in the end - I hope - a certain pride in those that "race off into the night" so that our children and grandchildren can sleep safely in their beds.
