Lasting Lesson

My path took me by the U.S. Post Office, where there seemed to be a commotion occurring.  I could see a man laying on his back, people standing around him, and everyone in a seeming endless panic.

My reaction as a trained emergency medical technician was to go and help as best I could. What I found surprised me and left me doubting my true humanity.

Before me lay the non-breathing and bluish body of my grade school principal, whom I felt tortured me as a student at Margaret Keating. It was the man who had shook me by the throat so violently that it had rattled a nearby classroom door.

In my mind, Mr. Fizer had made going to school a living nightmare. I truly believed he went out of his way to try and catch me doing something wrong, and if he could not find something wrong, he’d make something up.

Now suddenly, I was confronted with a personal dilemma: do I let my bitterness allow me to walk away, or do I get down on my hands and knees and save his life?

It felt like it took me forever to make up my mind. But people who witnessed what happened said I didn’t hesitate for a moment.

Before I knew it I was face-to-face with Mr. Fizer, my mouth clamped over his, forcing air into his dying lungs and starting chest-compressions. I repeated this until the ambulance arrived from the nearby air force base.

It would turn out to be a life altering moment for the both of us.

When Mr. Fizer recovered, he was a different man. Kinder, gentler, nicer, a person one liked being around.

He even instructed me, “You call me Bob, from now on Tommy.” And though I never felt real comfortable doing that, I forced myself to use his first name until he passed away as few years later.

As for me, I learned I wasn’t as bad a person deep down as I had believed myself to be.