An Origin Story From the Edge of Life and Death

There are moments in life that don’t just shape you—they name you.

For me, it happened on a dock in San Diego, in the summer of 2005. I was eighteen. A girl in EMT school, barely beginning my own life while learning how to save others’. The sun was bright that day, glinting off the harbor waters. Everything felt warm, full of promise.

Until the call came in.

Gunshot wound.

We raced to the scene, sirens slicing through the salt air. That sound would become a kind of soundtrack for the next decade of my life.

By the time we arrived, the paramedics were already kneeling at the edge of the dock, boots half-submerged in ocean spray, like they were straddling two realms. A woman had shot herself in the face. There was nothing recognizable left—no face, no features. Just blood. Just the rhythmic push of her chest as someone performed CPR. Not out of hope. Out of protocol. We were waiting on the physician to call it. Legally, time still needed to keep pretending.

And then I heard it.

"You—CPR. Now."

The voice cut through the static like a stone through still water.

“Me?” I asked, barely above a whisper.

"You’re an EMT, aren’t you?"

Technically, yes. Spiritually, I was still arriving.

But I dropped to my knees anyway.

My hands found her chest. I couldn’t count the compressions. I couldn’t find the rhythm. Adrenaline took over, and I just... kept going. Pumping. Trying. Hoping. My arms burned. My heart thundered. And somewhere beneath the terror and disbelief, another feeling emerged.

Knowing.
Claiming.
Truth.

This was more than a protocol.
This was a threshold.

I was touching something sacred, something unnameable but utterly real. The place between life and death was not abstract anymore. I was inside it. And I wasn’t turning away.

Eventually, the official call came. The charade of time gave way to truth. We climbed back into the fire truck, sirens off now. The quiet rang louder than the chaos.

I remember thinking—not in words, but in bone—
Something just changed. Forever.

Later that day, I called my mom. Still breathless, still buzzing.

“You won’t believe what I got to do today,” I said.

She paused. Then replied, dryly:
“You are one sick child.”

I laughed. But deep down, I knew—it wasn’t sickness I was feeling.

It was initiation.

Not into madness.
Into meaning.

That day didn’t scare me off. It carved me open.

And I knew, without question: I was meant to be in emergency medicine. Not because I was fearless.

But because I was willing to stand in the fire... and still feel.

Still pump.
Still hope.
Even when the face is gone.

Because somewhere in the trying—especially when we know it’s already too late—
we give dignity to the dying,
and shape to the sacred.

🔥 A Reflection for You

We all have these moments. Thresholds.
Not always bloody. Not always loud.
But life-altering just the same.

Have you ever been asked to step forward before you felt ready?
What moment carved you open?
What fire did you stand in that changed everything?

I invite you to sit with it.
Write about it.
Or simply honor it—
as the holy ground it truly was.