For Those Of Us That Pick Up The Pieces…

… when someone’s life shatters around them, it is sometimes hard to remember why we even try.

Day in, day out… people who don’t love themselves enough to take responsibility for their own health, and don’t care enough for others to lend a helping hand to their fellow man… it’s wearying. It can blind you to the very reason you got into such a profession in the first place.

We wade through the mud, and the blood, the piss and shit and vomit, the shattered glass and twisted metal, for very little thanks and a meager paycheck, and we often do it for people who expect a hand out rather than a hand up, who then have the temerity to claim, “I pay yo salary!”

We are mistakenly called heroes by people who don’t know any better, and ambulance drivers by people who should know better.

And when I write about it, someone always responds with “I couldn’t do what you do.”

But honestly, it’s not that different from being a cop, or a firefighter, or a prison guard, or a foster parent or social worker. Just a different milieu, that’s all, the same motivation written in a different medium, the failures all too familiar and all too frequent.

And when somebody asks me what it takes to make all that worthwhile, I always respond the same way:

“Just one person.”

Go read.