Month: May 2026

47. Ordination and Two Women

~ toddgoddard ~ Leave a comment

“Hey, Todd. I’d like to talk with you about becoming Ordained. I think I’d like to get Ordained to perform weddings. You know, to be of service.” My friend asked me innocent enough after our group meeting, not knowing the weeks I’d ponder his question and the waves of emotions that would sweep through me. 

“Yes, of course,” I responded with a forced smile. “Anytime.”

My wife looked at me with that puzzled look on her face. “What do I think ordination means to me?” She repeated my question. Silence filled the air as she thought. “Well,” she began.

“I mean,” I interrupted her, “get Ordained just to perform marriages? You can get that online for the price of ten minutes and thirty-five bucks. But what does it mean? If a United Methodist lay person obtains an online certificate of ordination does that renounce their membership?” It remained a mystery to me. 

“In that case,” she resumed, “ordination means nothing more than the ability to conduct a civil ceremony.” Not a church service, not an act of worship, not a recognized ordinate of the Church. Her clarity swept the fog away and revealed the hard reality of today’s Church in American society. 

Online ordination was a certification to conduct a civil ceremony. Nothing more, nothing less. It held no religious or theological weight.

Civil forces are eroding the foundation of the Christian Church. School activities have taken-over time previously dedicated to youth fellowship, Christian education, mission work, and camping. Church softball and basketball leagues have been replaced by intermural sports. Community festivals, complete with carnival rides, beer tents, and marching bands have replaced church picnics, dish-to-pass fellowship dinners, and game nights.

Wedding venues have replaced church weddings and funeral chapels have removed church funerals from the sanctuary table. Civil religion, resplendent with nationalism, has hijacked two thousand years of deep theological thought and practice. Even the term “evangelical” has been corrupted to reflect a political reality, rather than a fervent, passionate desire to bring people into a relationship with Jesus Christ. 

The throne of Christ hasn’t been abdicated, it has been overthrown in an unopposed palace coup. 

The innocent question from my friend, who grew up in the Church, but, in adulthood, walked away from organized religion has caused me to think more deeply the reality of my own ordination, what it means, and why it is important. 

Ordination is Christ centered. The God of my experience and tradition was manifest as the Creator’s son, Jesus Christ. This is not to exclude the experience or tradition of others. I come to The Way in and through Jesus. I follow his teachings and pattern my behavior on him, to the best of my limited ability. Forgiveness, redemption, and salvation, both personal and corporate, are freely given as gifts of grace through Christ from a loving God. 

Ordination is Holy Spirit infused recognition of a call to pastoral ministry. The Holy Spirit first worked internally, in my experience, casting for me the vision of serving as a pastor, a shepherd leader, of communities of faith assigned to me. My call began in childhood, developed and matured in youth, and came to fruition when I was nineteen. 

“Todd, what are you going to do with your life?” The college chaplain asked me with compassion and love in his eye. Over a period of months, words began to form and I confessed to the local parish pastor that I felt called to Ordained Ministry. That got the ball rolling.

The Holy Spirit worked externally, first in my local church and the Pastor-Parish Relations Committee. We talked, thought, prayed. Did they see in me what God was revealing? Would it be a call to parish ministry, or to engineering a new road through town? They must have liked what they saw and responded to the Spirit’s prompt. I was passed on from the local church to a District Committee on Ordained Ministry and assigned a mentor. 

The Holy Spirit was at work in my mentor and the District Committee. We studied together, met multiple times a year to gauge progress and provide guidance, each time assessing if the Spirit was ripening my spiritual fruit, strengthening my vine and branches. Concentric circles of Spirit led affirmation were spreading ever outward. 

By the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit, I survived the required background checks and psychological assessments, earned a bachelor’s degree and completed seminary. The local church and District Committee still met with me on a regular basis, even when I was handed off to the Conference Board of Ordained Ministry.

The Conference Board represented Ordained clergy from across the state. They received my records, visited me in seminary, met with me annually, confirmed my trajectory towards ordination, all the while, being led by the power and direction of the Holy Spirit. Concentric circles of affirmation, like water in a pond disturbed by a falling pebble, began locally and spread globally. Two step ordination assured a successful probationary period of service, coming to completion in two years with full membership and ordination as Elder. The entire Spirit led process took seven years. 

Ordination is humble service. The self is replaced with God at the center. Accomplishments are attributed to God. Thanks goes to God. My life, my soul, my all, is given wholly to God and God’s service. The DNA of servant leadership began with the Apostle Peter, given the keys to the kingdom by Jesus, with the exclusive authority for the good stewardship of the Church. The Ordained are stewards of the office, Episcopal leaders, Diaconal support, and Elders serving as parish pastors. We share stewardship of the efficient, effective, transparent use of money and property wholly for the purpose of Christ and his Kingdom. 

Ordination is stewardship of the Sacraments. Baptism and Eucharist are commands of Jesus, Holy Spirit fueled and led activities that initiate one into Christianity and nourish the faithful, uniting us with Christ and the common vision to complete God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Initiation is one and done. Eucharist is ongoing and never ending, mysterious, yet filling. Awesome, always refreshing and filling. Give us today, nourishment sufficient for today’s work.

Ordination is stewardship of The Word. Over centuries the Church has recognized specific writings as sacred, Holy Spirit inspired and empowered texts that are useful for Christian initiation, teaching, guidance, and inspiration. Scripture becomes the foundation for music, instruction, meditations, prayers, lyrics, proclamation. To the Ordained is the charge to proclaim The Gospel, literally meaning “the Truth of Jesus Christ”, to all the world. Uncut. Uncensored. As recorded in the Biblical books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The proclamation of The Word has been my lifetime of labor, of love, of stewardship, given to me.  

Ordination is stewardship of order. Order must be made out of the chaos of the masses. To the Ordained is given the charge to establish and maintain order, modify order as the Spirit so moves to keep the Church relevant and engaged in culture and society. In the United Methodist tradition, order is codified by The Book of Discipline, approved by a global conference of equal lay and clergy delegates, chaired by a rotation of bishops, held once every four years. The process of change is deliberately slow and intentional, giving space for the Holy Spirit to work through discernment, study, and dialogue. 

Ordination is the union of authority and responsibility for the Church of Jesus Christ. The weight of service is symbolized by the yoke worn around the neck, the stole, often resplendent with colors and symbols of Christian seasons, celebrations, or sacred events. 

The right to wear the yoke is reserved to the few who are called and affirmed, the Ordained, stewards of the Church of Jesus Christ, successors of the Apostle Peter, each and every one of us, prepared to lay down our lives in sacred defense of the faith. 

The Ordained, present company included, are less than perfect. I cannot pretend to be. Thus, the Church on earth is routinely human. This is no excuse for failing to strive for perfection, the completion of Christ’s kingdom on earth as it is perfect in heaven. 

We do our best. I do my best. When I fail, I confess my sins, repent, ask God for forgiveness, make repairs, and start all over again. God has always responded with amazing, abundant grace and love, redemption and salvation. This is The Way of the cross of Jesus Christ. God has never let me down. 

—

I attacked the pool this morning fitted out in a Pentecost red, skin tight, streamlined swim suite. It hid some of the physical defects and signs of aging, but not all. It streamlined my stroke and make forward propulsion more efficient. Lord knows how good it felt not to be dragged down by a baggy suit and ballooning pockets. 

One. One God.

Two. God created Adam and Eve, in the near perfect image of God. 

Three. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Creator. Redeemer. Sustainer. 

Four. Scripture, tradition, reason, experience; the quadrilateral of Wesleyan based faith. 

Five. Pente, as in Pentecost, or fifty. Fifty days following the resurrection of Jesus, he sent God’s replacement, the Holy Spirit, to guide and sustain us until Christ comes again.

Six. Six points of the Jewish star. 

Seven. The Lord created the heavens and earth in six days, then rested the seventh. Seven is Sabbath. Keep it holy. 

Eight. Hum. The higher the number the more difficult it becomes to keep track of my laps with numbers associated with faith. 

I make it to fifteen, and I’m done. Spent. Breathing hard. Steady myself by reaching and touching the wall. The hot shower felt, oh, so good. So good. 

—

It was a cold, damp, misty Monday morning, one which the Spring’s rain slicken roads and swelled creeks. Trees held the moisture, dripping the excess, under a dark, grey dawn. A young woman prepared for the office, dressed modestly, rolling on her tight stockings that revealed the muscles of youthful legs.

Driving to work on back country Wayne County roads, something cause her to swerve her late model SUV, skidding head on into a bridge abutment, flipping upside down, falling into the swift muddy creek below. Submerged, only the tires remained above the tide. Time ticked by.

The pager startled me to consciousness. “MVA. Car into a creek.” The coveralls slipped on, followed by shoes and car keys. My wife told me to be careful. Out the door I went, headed to the fire station, where our two ambulances silently stood ready, connect to an electrical land line to ensure all batteries were fully charged.

The call was way out at the furthest part of our district, a good 15 minute drive, when the roads were dry and free from traffic. One of our chiefs reported on scene and immediately called for a wrecker with a heavy duty winch. This couldn’t be good.

Safe extraction takes time. Years of training culminated with two brave firefighters dawning wet suits, harness, and ropes. No one knew if the submerged vehicle was occupied. Only the four tires stood sentinel like gravestones above the swirling water. Slowly, deliberately, the two descended the steep bank, a whole line of firefighters holding their tether in belay.

I watched the orchestra from the safety of the bridge. The tow truck backed to the edge, extended it’s crane, and slowly lowered the weighted steel cable over the side. The rescuers in the water knew exactly how to rig the automobile to hard points. When cleared, the winch slowly began to grind lifting the car from the watery grave. When above the rail, the operator, Buddy, a friend of the department, pivoted the boom and swinging, inverted SUV over to the road, water pouring from every compartment. Cable released, and a crowd of beefy firefighters flipped the car onto its wheels.

Equipment was piled on the waiting stretcher and backboard. I rolled it over to the driver’s door and pulled on the handle. It sprung open. Water cascaded out. In the driver’s seat was the woman, head down, looking as if she was taking a nap. I unbuckled the seat belt and we carefully pulled her out, laying her on the backboard.

She was as cold as ice, dark and grey, her long hair splayed around her head. There was no pulse, no respirations, no signs of life. The only anomaly I could see was a mid-thigh tear in her left stocking. A beautiful, young woman, on her way to work, now a corpse before me.

She had been submerged well over an hour, by the time she was found missing from work and people began to search for her. No, we would not start CPR or make any other life saving efforts. We were later informed that the autopsy revealed a mortal closed head injury that was the cause of death. She was dead from the initial impact, before she hit the water.

All that was left was to spread a linen blanket lovingly over her corpse and wait for the medical examiner to arrive.

—

After thirty years, sometimes I wonder why I write about these tragedies. Their memories remain vivid and real, down to the tear in a woman’s stocking. Hundreds of other scenes from my experience will remain unwritten. Only a few, the chosen, have I decided to put words to paper. Anonymity is always a critical element, never wanting to add to another’s grief.

Yet, I write. In doing so redemption fills my soul and brings me healing. Bad things happen, in spite of my will and every effort. Birth. Life. Death. Eternal life. It’s not about me. This is God’s kingdom, not mine. Rather, I’ve come to know the privilege of being present, being the tangible evidence of a loving God, even in the presence of unfathomable tragedy.  

—

It was a mid-summer, hot afternoon, one where the cicadas buzzed in the trees and a cool glass of ice tea on the front porch provided sweet relief. “MVA, route 31, east of town,” my pager tripped then squawked the details of the call.

It was a routine cycle of response, honed by training, tempered by experience. The flashing blue light on my dashboard urged me to go faster, maturity reigned me back. Eagerness and adrenaline is no substitute for physics or adherence to traffic law. The fire house was enroute to the scene, so I parked, ran in and jumped into the passenger seat of the rig.

Vern was my driver. Old. Reliable. Confirmed bachelor, Vern; who had a habit of baptizing the radio and lights and siren console with a cup of black coffee. “Hit it, Vern,” and off we went, entering the cue of responding police cars and fire chiefs also responding to the call.

One day in the near future I would conduct Vern’s funeral. He was found dead in his recliner, pager still working. We closed his casket with Vern dressed in his fireman’s dress uniform, working pager at his side. Hefty firefighters hoisted his casket to the hose bed of the pumper for his final ride to the cemetery. There wasn’t a dry eye in the company.

We pulled up to the scene. Two cars smashed in a head on collision, still smoldering, in the middle of the road, both vehicles crushed by the violent impact, passenger compartments folded tight by torn metal, covered in cubes of safety glass. If ever there was a text book evolution for the Jaws of Life, this was it.

A woman’s arm hung loosely from the driver’s compartment, attached to a crushed body, trapped in unnatural positions. There were no airbags in this era, only seat belts. A lot of good her seatbelt did for her. Her face was towards me, narrow slits in her eyes, just enough for me to believe that she was still alive and straining to peek out.

She had a pulse, weak, as it was. As the firefighters began their extraction with their noisy engine and jaws, I held her hand and placed my other upon her head. “It’s going to be alright,” I lied to her. “We just have to get you out of here.”

We were taught in training to never lie to a patient, to provide promises that couldn’t be kept. But in that moment, I lied. Not to mislead, rather, to bring comfort to a woman in the last moments of life.

Her pulse faded, then stopped. The guys on the jaws were frustrated; there just were not any hard points left on the car from which to spread, wedge, or pry. I would not let go of her hand, no matter how much it ached to maintain the position, no matter how cramp my legs became. Oh, my back ached. Yet, I held on.

It was well over an hour after her last heart beat that the wreck finally gave up it’s driver. Even the coroner arrived on scene and pronounced her dead before we were able to glide the corpse onto the backboard and stretcher. We were not allowed to transport the dead, so we waited for the local undertaker to be paged and dispatched. All we could do was cover the body and wait.

I did not know her name or family, yet I knew the grief that would fall upon them. It was important, at least to me, knowing that she did not die alone; knowing that she had died with someone who loved her, holding her hand. This was the best I could do.

I remember sitting on the back of the rescue truck pouring a cold bottle of water over my head and crying.

Welcome to my life: ordained pastor, volunteer medic, psychiatric assessment officer. This was the crucible of ministry.

46. A Higher Level of Care

~ toddgoddard ~ 1 Comment

The Pitt is a masterful rendition of a fast moving Emergency Department. Like its predecessor, ER, the pace, emotions, and procedures reflect my own experiences in ERs around the region. With my wife, with over 40 years of Labor and Delivery experience, and my experience running EMS and Psychiatric Assessments, we love to watch each episode, call out bull shit when we see it, fill in blank spots in our knowledge. To a large extent, Hollywood gets it right. 

Shout out to ED staffs of doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, and techs. I loved them all. Some became more than professional acquaintances; friends even. There would be middle of the night calls, when everything was settling down and paperwork was complete, when one would pull up a chair and we’d begin to talk about theology, family, politics, cases. 

It was always a huge relief to transfer care to ER staff, professionals with a higher level of care than my meager Intermediate Life Support Emergency Medical Technician certification allowed. Responsibility for life and limb weighs heavy on every medic. Training only goes so far; it kept me focused in the center of the hurricane, yet, each and every one of us responding to the cry for help from a neighbor remained deeply human. I felt, and cared, deeply for the human hurt and pain I heard and experienced.

—

The man sitting on the gurney opposite from me in the small psychiatric ER room was dressed in uniform. He had just completed his work day, jumped into his pickup truck and drove straight to the ER. He knew he was in trouble, just as serious as if he had crushing chest pains and difficulty breathing. 

Except, he didn’t. 

This soft spoken member of the law enforcement community had been hearing voices recently telling him to kill his wife. He knew they were not real, for he could not locate any source of the voices outside of himself. His experience, he reported to me, was more real than mere fleeting thoughts that could be brushed away by refocusing on a different tasks. He reported to me that he heard these voices plain as day. They began when he woke, continued through the day and into the night. 

He loved his wife, and children. From his world view there was no reason to want to bring harm or violence to his wife or family. Unnerving. Frightening. Terrifying, even. With no history of mental illness, this gentleman came to me desperate for help.

“The voices tell me to shoot her,” he reported. “They are breaking me down, and I’m afraid the only way to make them stop is to do it, even though I don’t want to.” My heart broke for this man, all the while, my brain is franticly searching for cause, treatment, and a path leading to a healthy outcome. He checked the homicidal box, had the means, and desire to carry through on his plan. 

Doing nothing wasn’t an option. He was also armed. 

People who experience homicidal ideation can be very dangerous, not only towards their target, but also to anyone else on the sidelines. Experience and crisis intervention training taught me to establish a non-anxious presence, de-escalate and maintain calm, and compassionately remove the threat. My affect was laid back and empathetic, words were soft and eyes expressed kindness. My brain was praying for God’s mercy to work in and through me. 

My legal pad was full of notes taken, a life spilled into my lap, emotionally flailing in an attempt to find a way out. Even during our interview I could see him wince, blink hard, when he heard his command hallucinations. Maybe he was attempting to block that which was assaulting him. 

“Give me one moment,” I said as I stood and stepped towards the door. “I’ll be right back.” And I left him, sitting in silence, on a hospital gurney, in a small ER room, armed with a gun. 

I went straight to the attending ER doctor, pulled him aside and gave him the brief run down. “And he’s armed,” I told him, driving home the life held by a thread, serious nature of the patient. Fear wasn’t on my radar. Training and experience kept me laser focused. Yes, there was mortal danger, but thinking about that could be postponed to later. Then I could collapse in the staff lounge with a case of the he-be geebies. 

No. He-be geebies cannot be found in the clinical manual of psychiatric disorders. That doesn’t mean they aren’t real. “I’m on it,” doctor Mark told me. “Go back in and keep him calm.” 

So I re-entered the exam room, pen and legal pad in hand. Memory fails regarding what we spoke about, but it must have been effective because he remained calm and quiet. Time passed, as if I could hear every tick of a sweep second hand on the clock. Our conversation was almost casual. There was a knock at the door. 

Turning to stand and open the door, it exploded open and in rushed the A-team. Cops, hospital security, lots of big burley men. I slipped out, unseen. It was over before the patient knew what was happening. He was restrained and disarmed, not of just one handgun, but two. Later, his pickup truck in the parking lot also sported a cache of firearms and ammunition, now secure. Whew!

A tragedy was averted that evening. A story was written that never made the evening news. A tortured mind was made safe, and I can only hope and pray, he was able to find the cause of his hallucinations, to be effectively treated, and to return to a life filled with love and family. 

Why? I wondered. There are many possible causes for such a condition. Medical, chemical, disease, abuse, hereditary, you name it. UTI? Brain tumor? Late onset Schizophrenia? Sometimes it is nearly impossible to nail down a cause, let alone treatment. There but by the grace of God goes any of us. It was by that same grace that I was effective and safe that hot summer evening so long ago in the ER. 

Thank you, Lord. 

—

Every lap in the pool this morning was shared with a fellow traveler on this journey called life. He was kind is offering to share a lane, faster than me – aren’t they all? – completing three laps to my every two. 

Each time we passed I squeezed tight to the lane markers, compensating for the violence of water, splash, and wave. It was as if his displacement pushed against me. It wasn’t intentional, just physics. 

Water has to go somewhere. I reflect on the wet spring we are experiencing, breaking records I hear from the evening weather report. Streams, running chocolate brown, fill their banks full to overflowing. Low dams that used to support mills long since gone have been swept clean of debris, water swift, flowing so fast over the crest it registers as hardly a bump. Low lands, fields, and lawns flood, basements fill, and rain continues to fall. 

Pool water refreshes. River water cleanses. Filtered water nourishes. Baptismal water stakes a claim. 

—

All the classroom training cannot prepare an EMS medic for the full reality of traumatic injury and death. Experience is the only calming effect I know of. Debriefing helps reduce the debilitating effects of post-traumatic stress. But that comes after the fact. This is where having experienced leadership is essential to the effective deployment of an emergency medical services agency. 

We were blessed with Vince and Jean. Retired, but not inactive, a husband and wife duo who had been in on the ground level of emergency medical services in the 1940’s and 50’s, when local undertakers gladly passed responsibility to someone else, anyone else, usually to volunteer fire departments! The ubiquitous black hearse with a gumball light would be replaced with municipally funded, hand crafted ambulances, complete with trained medics and drivers, lights and sirens. Trauma medicine had advanced by leaps and bounds during WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. It was making the leap into every neighborhood and community in the country. 

Vince and Jean, lifelong members of the Reformed church, had seen it and done it all. Some new bucks rebelled against their authority, but quickly were told to toe the line or get out. That’s what the other ambulance service in town was for; our rejects, and it showed, or so we believed. 

Her name escapes me. She was alive when I got to her. Her elderly body trapped by steel and plastic, covered with cubes of broken safety glass, violence now ended, leaving her with exposed bone, blood, and brains. But, she was breathing and had a heartbeat. “Launch Mercy Flight,” I requested in my radio. Standing back, ever the leader and safety officer, Vince agreed and relayed my request to dispatch. 

Our rescue crew fired up the Jaws of Life, its small engine powering a hydraulic set of pincers, coughed and came to life. All I could get at was covering her nose, or what was left of it, with a non-rebreather mask and 16 liters of pure oxygen. A fireman threw a blanked over the two of us, shielding us from shards of glass and flying plastic parts. Her vehicle had been obliterated, engine separated from frame, axels departed, steel twisted, steam hissing, electrical connections severed, one wheel 150 feet down the road resting in a ditch. 

Pulling into the path of a car doing 55 will do that to a vehicle. I know, from personal experience, both as a medic, and, later in life, as a patient. 

Firefighters set up a landing zone a few hundred yards away on a driveway well clear of overhead obstructions. Mercy Flight landed with sound and fury, just as my patient was freed from entrapment. C-collar. Back board. The non-rebreather reservoir inflating and deflating with every breath, until it didn’t. 

Shit. Respiratory arrest, I called out. The Bag-Valve-Mask (BVM) came out and we took over breathing for our unconscious patient. Unbelievable, but she had a pulse. 

The impeccably coifed flight paramedic approached from behind and snarled at me, “what did you call us for? She’s in arrest. We can’t transport a patient in respiratory arrest.” 

“Well, she wasn’t when I called you,” I responded, anger rising. Now he was on the scene, as a paramedic, he was a higher level of care than me, so the ball was in his court. His call. What was he going to do?

First things first. A is for airway. We loaded her temporarily in our ambulance so he could sink an Endo-Tracheal tube. That meant starting an IV and the paramedic pushing drugs that sedated and paralyzed her. We worked like demons with the house on fire. Success meant a possibility, however slim, for life. Failure, and, well. We might just as well call the undertaker and go home. 

Oh. Yeah. There was blood, bone, and brain all over the place. But she still had a heartbeat. 

“We fly,” he decided, as he looked at me and said, “and you’re bagging her all the way to the hospital.” 

My heart jumped. The prospect of flying in a helicopter, a new experience. “Sure,” I smiled, wiping away the sweat dripping into my eyes.

Bagging was made easier because the BVM was connected to the ET tube. We extracted from the ground ambulance, and with the assistance of big, burley firefighters, rolled the gurney to the idling helicopter, helmeted pilot still in his seat. We ducked beneath the blades, and steered clear of the tail rotor, just as instructed in training, ball caps removed and secured under the belt. The backboard slid between the clamshell doors. I entered the starboard side door, of a very small, cramped compartment. As the patient slid into place, I resumed respirations, knees sandwiching her ears, hunched over, head above her belly. The paramedic behind me monitored the EKG, drugs, and IV lines.

I couldn’t move, shift my weight, or adjust my position. Other than my hands squeezing the breath of life into our critical patient, I became one big cramp. If only I could have looked up or out a window.

The flight to Strong Memorial Hospital was all business. We landed with a thump. Only when the patient was slid from beneath me was I able to move, barely. Fortunately, plenty of hospital personnel took over and I was freed to work my aching muscles.

The broken woman delivered to trauma care remains nameless to this day. I don’t know if she lived or died. If she lived, God help her, for her broken body and bones, and lacerated brains, would need something more than the balm of Gilead.

The turn around was fast; much faster than I was used to on a ground ambulance. The roof top helicopter pad needed to be opened as soon as possible. “Let’s go,” the aeromedical paramedic said to me. Up and out we went.

He helped me strap in and dawn a flight helmet, complete with intercom. “Welcome to my bird,” the pilot said to me. “Time to go home.”

“Can you take me back to Palmyra?”

“No can do, buddy. Rules say I have to take the chopper back to base in Canandaigua. Don’t worry, we’ll get you home.”

“Okay, then,” I said, thinking to myself that my little joy ride just made a three hour ambulance call into a six.

“No worry,” the pilot replied. “Rules don’t say I can’t give you a guided tour back home.”

And so we went, flew up and straight south-east, out of the Rochester airspace. Over Mendon, not quite half way, the pilot began to dive and swoop, banking left and right, giving me a joy ride unlike the best rollercoaster anywhere. It was glorious! I laughed until I cried. The views were fantastic.

The pilot straightened up approaching the Canandaigua airport, set the skids down on a wagon slightly bigger than a Radio Flyer, shut down, and a John Deere lawn tractor towed us into the hanger. I wondered how that was done. Now, I knew!

The owner of Mercy Flight, Paul H., met me as I got out of the aircraft. He shook my hand and thanked me for the help. Hey, I was free labor; why wouldn’t he have a smile on his face? Paul was nice and offered me a ride home to Palmyra. “Sure,” I smiled. “Thank you.” We talked EMS and Mercy Flight all the way back.

I was dropped off at the fire station and everyone crowed around, welcoming me home. “How was it?” “Enjoy the ride?” “Did she make it?”

All the while Vince and Jean stood back, arms folded across the chest, waiting, quietly smiling. When the crowd thinned, then dispersed, Vince came over and said to me, “Good job, Todd. You did real good.”

That was all I needed to hear.

Thank you Lord, for great training and the support of a professional team, all volunteers. Thank you, for higher levels of care. Thank you, for Vince and Jean.