11/14/2023
I drive to work today. I was stopped by a train. On the Ike coming in, it was a parking lot. Little did I know it was my engine blocking traffic for an auto accident. As I walked in to work, a little miffed by the occurrences on the way in, I heard about the Mayday. It’s ok. We have lots of those. I checked out my rig and had my coffee. The Marshall line rings. It’s my DDC. He says when Truck 7 gets back from their change, to make sure it’s clean for the morgue. You see It’s all business on the Fire Department. And I get it. Time to compartmentalize cuz we got s**t to do. Hang the bunting. Figure out manpower. Get the pipes and drums outfitted and available. Go on runs, cuz those don’t stop. It’s like when you do your morning routine so many times that it becomes second nature. My company decided to go check out a skylight to educate ourselves so it wouldn’t happen to us. Lunch. Laughter, jokes, solving the world’s problems. And now I sit here in my bunk, thinking about Drew. And his family. And the grief they are feeling. We cannot feel that right now. We have a job to do. Let’s say we get a fire tonight. Am I going to worry? A little. But it’s not our place right now to worry. Not yet.
Tomorrow will come, a new shift will start. The sun will rise and the sun will set. Can we grieve then? What about our spouse’s bad day. Our children that we tend to. Keep going, I’ll work on it later. Until the next day, and the next, and the next…
Our mind does not work well this way. The trauma will eventually rear its ugly head. Be it through anger, sadness, flashbacks, drinking. It will come. It may not come tomorrow, or next week. But it will come. What I want you to do first is grieve. Have a good cry, tell your loved one how you are feeling. Telling your story is advocating for your mental health. It gets your headspace to your mouth space. After you have done this, if you are still struggling, contact a mental health counselor. They will help you make sense of your twirly twisted mind and set you on a road to positivity. Advocate for yourself. Talk to someone. We all need to. Your mind will thank you for it.
