I was recently speaking with some friends and the topics floated around like they normally do. We finally spun into accomplishments and major things each of us have done. As each of us look back on our lives there are things we have achieved and successes we are proud of.
I would like to tell you something I did that may have been the most important and long lasting of any. My family and group of friends love to camp. We go to parks and national forests, friends get-a-ways and even in our back yard. In fact one of the local county parks uses our camp sight as the background picture for their web site. One night we had just finished cooking for everyone over a controlled fire and had a feast. The sun was down and we built up the campfire so it was going pretty good. Many of the campers were stuffed and sitting in deep chairs and settling down for good company and conversations. I was standing with my back to the fire talking with someone and enjoying the evening. I sometimes refer to having eyes in the back of my head or getting the ‘spider-sense tingling’ that something is wrong. What in memory seems like the same time, I heard alarm and excitement from the group of people sitting close to the fire. It quickly rose to a definite panic. Not really knowing what the concern was, I turned around facing the camp fire. I saw that my youngest granddaughter – very young at the time – had been standing near the fire facing someone in the chairs and did not realize she had backed up too far and had tripped backwards into the center of the fire pit. People watching were unable to get out of their seats and you could see the panic in their eyes. I turned quickly and reached down. I grabbed her shirt in a bunch with one fist and pulled her as hard and as fast as I could. I slammed her into my chest and gave her a great big hug before she even realized what had happened.
The group relief was ear shattering and was more alarming to her than me plucking her out of the pit. I think back and consider escape from the amount of pain and suffering for a life time to come. I thought for a while that this is why I was put on this planet – my work here is done. Of course it is not and there will be many more stories to tell, but maybe none that made the world a better place like that one quick knee-jerk response.
I would like to hear your most remembered action that made a huge difference to someone else. Let’s celebrate and share those accomplishments in this post.
MidiMike 