As I am now in my 76th year, I realize that there are few moments in one's life that can be recalled with great clarity.  When one's first child is born.  The day one marries. The first grave news one receives.  And even more so to recall with a life lesson.

In 1954 I completed my residency in medical technology at Rex Hospital.  Then, they had a school for this in the hospital.  Unlike Watts or other nearby hospitals, Rex paid a high wage of $100 a month and they accepted me, the first married student.  Hardly any area schools accepted married students then.  The hours were not set for a traditonal home life anyway.

Not long after I began working there, I was called to an emergency in the operating room for lab work.  A middle aged man had been run over by a bus in downtown Raleigh.  He was already on the table for examination within a half hour of the incident. The doctors knew that he would not live even for his family to make it in time.

As I performed my duties, the man and I talked lightly.  He said that he had some test run before and to not worry I was going to hurt him.  When I returned moments later with the results, he had passed.

Many nights over the next four years, I slept in the small dorm size room in the Rex School of Nursing building directly behind the hospital.  It had only a bed and a phone to ring when the hospital needed me during the night. I would lie in the dark staring at the ceiling and think of this man and what he said, and he didn't say, there in his final hour.  And  it was to me.

What would I say?  To whom?  Will I  know when?  That is a fellow that does not arrive by appoinment. 

I still look at the ceiling, and wonder.