Wordsmoker

Chillbear Latrigue wrote:

Chillbear Latrigue wrote:

I didn’t know this man as well as would have liked—as well as I thought that future years would allow. He was young and strong and seemed like a very good man. I regret having missed the opportunity.

I believe in divine intervention about as much as I believe in soul mates, Karma, cosmic justice, Santa Clause or Jupiter (the god). Yet, when something like this happens—not Roger’s untimely death, but the events leading up to them—I still pray.

And you’re right, MRD, it never works. It didn’t work this time and it didn’t work last year. I don’t imagine that it will do any good the next time that someone who I know has a car crash, is diagnosed with cancer, is shot, or just walks out of a building thirty seconds earlier than they normally would have and pays a fantastically high price for it.

I will bow my head and have a silent conversation with someone who I doubt exists, because I’m afraid that it might have worked the one time that I don’t.

I’m angry too, but God is not the current subject of my rage. I haven’t even thought about God’s hand in this or the absence of it. I may get around to Him, but I have some other things that I’m angry about at the present moment. I just can’t reduce those things to writing yet.

What I posted up there didn’t sit well with me after I wrote it. I didn’t know Roger Morales particularly well, and I don’t think that it’s appropriate to exaggerate my personal grief. Having said that, this is a truly tragic story. Roger was twenty-eight or soon to be twenty-eight. He had a year or two on the job and was married. He and his wife were trying to have a baby, or so I’m told.

On Sunday night he worked the midnight shift from nine at night until seven in the morning. He had little or no sleep and reported to a park near our city for SWAT tryouts. He started to run the obstacle course as part of his trial. I’m told that the physical portion is particularly grueling these days. In the beginning of the course, he outpaced several other officers. Sometime on his second lap, he began to fall off and eventually collapsed. He was immediately administered CPR by a paramedic who was in attendance.

It took a while for the ambulance to respond and get him to a neighboring hospital. Despite the fact that the park was close, the location within was remote and it took time for the ambulance to respond.

Roger’s heart stopped several times and he was not able to maintain a pulse independently. I was initially told that he wouldn’t make it. After a few hours at the hospital, the doctors had stabilized Roger and his heart was working on its own. They medically induced a coma to prevent him from fighting with the intubation apparatus. They also reduced his body temperature by several degrees to mitigate the damage that had been done.

When the doctor spoke to several of us on Monday, Roger’s prospects began to seem hopeful. I started looking forward to the time that we could give Roger shit about what had happened: “What the fuck, Morales? Getting people all worked up and shit.” Only with a few weeks, I’m sure that I would have come up with something better. I was encouraged by Congresswoman Giffords’ progress. I reasoned that if she could survive her ordeal, Officer Morales would surely come through his.

On Wednesday, the doctors raised Roger’s body temperature and learned that despite their previous optimism, the damage was too extensive. The most positive scenario that the family was given was that he might recover to a vegetative state. At this point, a lot when on that I’m not privy to, although I can imagine the conversations.

Today, they took Officer Roger Morales off of life support and his life ended shortly thereafter. Mercifully. Thankfully.

I didn’t know Roger very well. In fact, I checked my Facebook page and learned that I had never even bothered to friend him. It was strictly an oversight, but now it’s one that I regret. Roger worked on a different shift than I do, and if we were working on the same day, it was only for three hours.

The pain that I feel from losing Roger doesn’t come from a close association with the man. Like everyone else, I just don’t like when people die at a young age for no good reason. I also hate how this is hurting the people who I am close to that knew him better than I did.

I wanted to set the record straight.

Your first reply I clearly understood as I have been there and was on point with MRD. Your second reply is a very great tribute to a man, a coworker, a father, a husband, one that could have been anyone of us going about our daily routines.

As I reread her words I can only recollect my own grief the violently ripped me from my faith. I grieve, I hope and pray for that moment that when my words may affect upon seemingly deaf ears. So often I hear within my family and those close to me the miracles to which God has performed and gives me hope that maybe he does listen. Although I no longer attend a mass I continue on hoping, and praying and grieving in my silence I hope that my belief in something other that words or sounds or thoughts. For I know that my time is ticking. I thought I had made peace but every battle lost from those close, that have true meaning in my life and heart for whatever reason disease accident or age, I have to reexamine my own rage and wonder did I give up on hope, belief and will and fight within me ? No one has the answer for the seemingly senseless or losses or God’s plan. For I fear the time that I turn my back is when I may need him the most even if the peace I seek is to quiet my inner demons. I know the pain and feel the void its a struggle that continues day to day. I know that being a father it lessons every day for I see hope.