It all started last Thursday, a week ago today, when Mongo may have saved a seventy nine year old man's life. I came across him, face down in a ditch and not really moving, on the side of the Silver Comet Trail...and what followed was a defining moment in my humanity.
Though I do believe I am a kind, compassionate, giving person, I also know that I am partial to narcissistic and selfish tendencies. So when my brain registered at twenty four miles per hour that there was a person laying face down in a ditch, I literally had a split second to decide whether or not to get "involved". I really must have more asshole in me than I originally thought because it took two "I should really stop!" spoken to myself before I finally stopped and turned around.
The man's name was Jack...and he was an "old" 79. He had lost his balance and stumbled off the side of the trail only to collapse, face down, in a bed of pine straw and rocks. He couldn't turn himself over and his face was bleeding, and when I turned him over, his mouth was filled with dirt and straw. It was quite a sobering sight. I cleared his mouth, washed his face with my water bottle, and made him drink some water. He told me that he had resigned himself to dying if no one had come along...and he was completely serious.
The story ends well...with myself and another good samaritan named Terry spending over an hour with Jack, calling his wife to meet us, and slowly walking him an inch at a time the half a mile back to his medication. During that walk I learned about Jack's Diabetes, his war service, his thirty years working for Hewlett-Packard, and his prized Collie who had recently died. I truly felt honored to have been able to have done "something" for a total stranger who, through a potential tragedy, has inspired me to be a better person.
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