LOST

I guess it is understandable, reasonable, even expected that in over 42 years of emergency service, responding to sinking ships, plane crashes, house fires, wrecks, shootings, heart attacks and the like that there will be times when you will lose a victim or a patient.  I have done that.

There have been times when I have walked away from a scene and have been sadden by the loss of a life; times when I questioned whether or not I preformed the  correct procedure, used the best methods or followed the best practices in order to save that victim.   “What if”  I had done this or not done that.  There have been many time I played the role of “Monday morning quarterback”. 

But there has never been a time, not one, in all these years when I walked away and felt like I hadn’t given it my best.  There has never been a time that I walked away and haven’t “left it all on the field” for those who had providentially been placed in my care.  And I’m proud of that.

But I lost another one this week. 

Oh, I wasn’t there to take his vital signs, or start the I.V.  I wasn’t there to intubate, defibrillate or preform CPR.  I didn’t even know he had died until a week later.  But I lost him. 

I stood on that wind-swept hillside in a little forgotten graveyard on a lonely road in the backwoods of Bibb County yesterday and I realized that I had lost him.

It would have been comical if it were not such a sad situation. 

There were six people who were required to be at the grave side service.  There were the two undertakers from Georgia who had to transport the body.  There was one over-seer from the county, who was required to be there for the burial.  There was the old country preacher who was hired by the family to perform the service, and two black grave-diggers who had just one more job to do before they went home for the day. 

According to the preacher, this man left behind a loving sister.....but they had not spoken in 10 years and she wasn’t there.  He left behind a daughter.....who was in jail on drug charges and wasn’t there.  He left a grandson.....who was in foster care and wasn’t there, and he left behind a “very special friend and care-giver” who didn’t get along with any of the family and wasn’t welcome there. 

There were six family members there.  These were good old country folk, blue jeans, over-all’s, they smoked at the side of the grave before the service.  “I guess that’s ok isn’t it”, one said.  One was barefooted even as cold as it was.  “Oh, this is the way he knew me and this is the way I’ll come to the funeral” one said.  Six of them and not a tear shed. 

There were no pallbearers.  The grave-diggers, the undertakers and myself gathered at the end of the hearse and served in that capacity by carrying the casket to the grave.   There were two little containers of flowers  sort of like the ones you would get at one of those discount flower places.  There was no music except one little mockingbird that I heard off in the hardwoods to the west of the cemetery.   

As the relatives sat down by the grave side the old preacher prayed for the “grieving family”.  He read from a paper someone had given him that contained information about those who were left behind.  At one point he almost dropped that paper into the open grave.  He read the 23^rd Psalm and then prayed again, I think it was the  same prayer he prayed initially.  That’s it.  His job was done.

“I’m glad he didn’t take too long”, one of the family members said,  “Let’s go home”.

And we all walked away. 

But this time I walked away knowing that I hadn’t done my best.  I walked away from this scene knowing that I had been too busy, too tired, too tied up in what I wanted to do to be bothered with one old man.  Instead of “leaving it all on the field” I had left one behind.  I had lost him.   

I could present some good excuses.  After all, he lived in Georgia and I lived in Alabama.  I only knew him because he owned the property next door to me.  I only saw him a hand full of times in the few years we had known each other.  But I lost him.

Not once did I tell him what a good man he was.  Not once did I tell him how much I appreciated the things he did.  I never mentioned to him that I valued his friendship.  Oh, I prayed for him.  I cried out to The Father on his behalf.  I asked God not to let him go out into eternity without Jesus.  I invited him to church and church functions when he was around.  But I don’t ever remember telling him that I loved him or that God loved him.

If I read the Word correctly, we, as Christians are called to be God’s hands, feet, voice and heart. We are called to “stand in the gap and make up the hedge”.   I wonder how many more gravesides I’ll stand at before I put that calling into practice.