Losing a Friend

Our fire department Chaplain was a great man. He would come and ride the trucks sometimes. He officiated at many firefighter weddings. He would talk to us while in the station, but never, not once discussed religion with you unless you brought it up. He was an older guy, a real father figure. He dispensed the sort of advice you saw from television dads, always seeming to say just the right things. I remember that he walked me through some tough times.

• At the scene of a drive by shooting with a police officer holding a shotgun standing behind you in case the shooter comes back
• running into an unsecure scene with multiple gunshot victims to save a 17 year old girl who was shot 15 times.
• the girl who was stabbed 7 times in the chest by her estranged boyfriend
• The time that took the worst toll on me was the baby that drowned. I bore the guilt of not being able to save him for years. I was in therapy for six months. It was crushing. I’m better now, and I have come to terms with it, but it’s still there.
• the Hurricane Katrina response.
• I was the triage officer for 1999’s tornado swarm in Central Florida. We spent over a week looking for bodies.
• The new mother with the 6 week old child who had a seizure. I spent years believing that I should have criked her. Maybe, if only, etc.
• Trauma on top of emotional trauma. Pastor Pete was there for all of it.

He didn’t need to push his religion on anyone. His faith, he would say, didn’t require agreement or validation from anyone. It wasn’t threatened by someone else who didn’t believe. He is all that I would hope a godly and Christian man should be.

.He didn’t retire until a few years after I did.

I recently got in a discussion of evolution with someone online. He demanded that I prove that evolution exists, then handwaved away every single piece of evidence. The only evidence he provided for his own beliefs was a book, written by men, and so he said, inspired by a god he couldn’t provide evidence for.

The Pastor would not have done the same. He was an honest man who didn’t need to attack the beliefs and ideas of others in order to validate his own ideals. All of us would be mush better people if we could emulate him. I know that I am not cut from that cloth, although I occasionally try.

Pastor Pete died just last week, I was just told yesterday by a friend. I haven’t seen him in a few years, but the world is a little bit less without him. He will be sorely missed, even in absentia.