My mom has
only wanted to be one thing her whole life, a nurse. She worked hard to achieve
her goal and after leaving the navy and having three children she attended bcc
and became a nurse. She got a job at Charlton Memorial Hospital and became an
emergency room nurse. Now in my mind I could pick out several memories where
her knowledge has come into play, but none stick out more than one trip we took
to the grocery store. This particular incident took place when I was pretty
young right around the time I was 8 years old. This was the first time I ever
got to see my mom in action, putting her skills to the test.
My mom had picked me up from school
and asked, “Do you want to go to the grocery store with me?” Now normally I would
say no because let’s face it for a man there’s nothing worse than going to the
store with your mom. But I decided to save my mom a trip and just suck it up
and go to the store with her. The closest supermarket at that time to my house
was Shaw’s next to the harbor hall and the former site of big top. The store
was on the opposite side of the city from my school so we took the highway and
got there in no time. I remembered thinking in the car that this excursion was
going to suck and take forever.
When we got to the store we walked
in the front door and started shopping. We didn’t have a carriage, we were only
there for dinner stuff so we had basket that I had to carry. We made about
three aisles in and then we saw and elderly man around 60 or so standing in the
isle. He was a short old Portuguese man and was wearing jeans, a sweater, and
an old dirty hat. As we started walking further down the aisle the man collapsed
on the floor about ten feet away from us and I was just frozen in a state of
shock. The man didn’t fall straight back, he buckled at the knee and took a
weird angle as he fell. My mom ran straight over to the man and started
checking him all over to see if there was an obvious reason for the tumble. I
had never really seen anything like this outside of the movies so I was
creeping closer and closer to the man’s body. My mom was vigorously performing CPR
on the man, and then she yelled, “Anthony go in my purse and call 911,” now
this was my first serious call to emergency services so it was a crazy
experience. The emergency operator picked up the call and started talking to
me, I explained the situation to her and how my mom was a nurse. I had no clue
where the building was address wise so I had to get a worker in the store.
I was on the phone the
entire to my mom was attempting to resuscitate the man. Finally after what felt
like a lifetime, which just so happen to be maybe 15-20 minutes the ambulance showed
up and the paramedics took over. I watched them strap the man to the stretcher
and hook him up to all the different devices. After the man was evacuated and
on his way to the hospital, my mom was in a tizzy and said, “I don’t even want
the groceries anymore; I just want to go home.” So we left the store without
getting a single thing. The drive home was completely silent; I think we were
both in shock that the man collapsed just as we were passing. My mom ended up
calling the hospital later that night to see what happened to the man. He unfortunately
died later on in the hospital. The family thanked my mom repeatedly and sent
her several cards to thank her for all that she did. I was amazed on how quick
my mom responded to the situation.
When I asked my mom if she
remembered the event she and I talked for a good while about the whole thing
and how crazy it was. Looking back on that moment it taught me to expect
anything at any moment, granted nothing like that has happened to me again but I
wouldn’t be in total shock if it did happen. I have never been more proud of my
mom than in that moment and I saw her passion for the preservation of human
life.
I beileive your message in this essay is that anything can happen at anytime. Your mother was in the right place at the right time, and you must be very proud that she has the ability to help people when needed. When you described the old man falling to the ground, i could almost see it. You gave alot of good detail and imagery. How where your feelings when he collapsed? Where you scared? I think if you described your feelings more after the man fell, the readers might be able to feel how you where feeling. You did a good job pulling the audience in, right from the title.
ReplyDeleteThis is a pretty clearly told narrative that certainly connects to your theme.
ReplyDeleteto me, the message seems to have something to do with how we see our parents, those moments when we start to see them as people in their own right, not just "ours" but people who act in the world. These seem like key lines: "This was the first time I ever got to see my mom in action, putting her skills to the test" and "I have never been more proud of my mom than in that moment and I saw her passion for the preservation of human life." I can relate to this by thinking of times I saw my father at work, for example, so that for me though this essay does tie to medical theme it's really in some ways more about family (which is fine! and perhaps you don't see it that way?)
The details here are somewhat limited, in large part because the scene happened so long ago and also because it was a fairly brief experience. If you agree with me about message, you may be able to expand it to talk about other times you saw your mother as nurse, not just your mother? (And you might reflect on that as well, on how image of parent can change).
Writing overall seems clear and quite competent in terms of mechanics.
To be honest this essay made me really sad. i actually pictured what happend because the details you gave were really well described. The silent ride home kind of brings the story together of what just happened. The fact you asked her abou tit afterwards to see if she remembered, then talking about the whole thing, its a crazy experience and you described it well. Maybe a few more details of what was going on in your head at that time when the man collapsed, and after you asked you mother how she felt after.
ReplyDelete