This is a guest post by retired Sgt. Donald Gill of the Puyallup Police Department in Washington State. He is the author of “Small Town Cops.” Check out his Facebook page here.
It was a bright, sunny afternoon in Sumner, Washington, and I was working the swing shift when I got a radio call stating there was a bad accident at an intersection less than a block from my old family home, where only my parents lived now.
I raced to the scene, hoping it wasn’t one of my family members. When I arrived, I could clearly see that a large truck had failed to stop at a stop sign and impacted the driver’s door of a small pickup. I didn’t bother to get out and check for injuries, and called over the radio, “112 Sumner, need aid now.”
Climbing out of my cruiser, I made my way through a gathering crowd to find an old man behind the wheel of the small truck that was crushed all around him. The driver’s side was mangled and blocked by the offending truck and the passenger door was crushed by a now broken telephone pole. I, however, was able to get to the old guy using an opening that used to be a back window.
As I looked him over, it was obvious he was a mess. Arms and legs had snapped in directions they weren’t meant to be. His internal damage was probably just as bad. He bled badly from a head laceration.
When he realized my presence he said, “I’m not going to make it.” I said, “Aid will be here soon, I’ll stay with you.”
The old man looked at me from deeply sunken, half-closed eyes and asked, “Do you have a bible?”
I had been a cop for five or six years and always thought I had everything a cop would need, but suddenly here was a “last request” I could not fulfill. I yelled at bystanders for a bible, but no one had one.
I motioned to one young man to come closer and he did. Then I told him to run to the first house on Meade McCumber, the rambler on the right side of the street, knock on the door and politely ask my mother for her bible.
“It is on her nightstand,” I told the lad, and then said, “tell her her son needs the bible and also make it clear I’m okay and not hurt. Please hurry.” He was gone in a flash, running like he was possessed.
My attention went back to the dying man and I said, “It’s on the way.” He slowly lifted his eyes and simply said “thank you.” I looked up just as the kid ran into my parent’s driveway and disappeared.
Hurry, I thought to myself. The old timer was fading and a last request must be honored.
I could hear sirens in the area and knew fire and aid was on the way, but they would be disappointed. I’ve seen death before and recognized it was at the old fellow’s doorstep, just waiting for a last breath before taking over.
“Stay with me,” I pleaded to the fellow, “stay with me.”
Be home Mom, be home, I quietly thought to myself. I looked towards my parents’ home and saw the youngster racing back to me. As he ran, I noticed a small black object in his right hand, the bible I hoped.
“Make a hole!” I yelled to the ever-growing crowd.
Soon, the boy was as close as he could get and shoved the bible through the wreckage to a point where I could reach it.
“Got it. Here Mister, a bible. Do you want me to open it?” I asked.
His eyes were slits, but he responded “no” and grabbed the bible from me with the only thing that didn’t appear broken, his right hand. He held the bible to his chest, and for a moment he was at peace.
I looked up and saw my mother at the edge of the road in a mom’s uniform: skirt, blouse and apron, her left hand on her left cheek and right hand on her right cheek with that “oh my god” look about her.
My left arm was wrapped around the old guy and his head began to sink further. I felt for a pulse that had been slight minutes before, but I could feel nothing now.
A fireman was frantically trying to get to the cab, but when our eyes met I simply motioned my head side to side to pass on the bad news. Several more minutes passed before I began to wiggle out of the cab of the truck. More fire department folks and medics took over, but the save card had been played and rejected. The bible fell from the old man’s hand and I took it with me.
More cops and state troopers arrived as I slowly walked to my parents’ home.
“You okay?” my mother asked.
“Yes, thank God you were home,” I said.
As I cleaned blood from the bible and myself, I told her what had happened. She fretted about the dangers of that intersection till I left.
It was years later on Nov. 1, 1999, the entire family was jammed into a room on the second floor of Good Samaritan hospital in Puyallup, when my mom lost her 16-year battle with breast cancer. She left saying goodbye. The only thing heard in the room was quiet sobbing, sniffling and lots of tears. Such is life and death.
Several weeks later, my brother and I met at our now-vacant parents’ home, as our father had died two years earlier. To a stranger, the home was empty, but to us it was packed with memories. I could see all the Christmas trees in the living room, and a couch that countless wars had been fought on between my brother and I till dad came home and kicked us both off so he could sit and read or watch television.
Our tour took us to our parents’ bedroom, and the first thing I noticed on a nightstand was our mom’s bible. The same bible from when I was a little boy to the day I so desperately needed it for a dying man’s last request. The same bible my mother would unzip after we arrived at church every Sunday morning as children, carefully clutching it in her petite hands and following the minister’s readings during every sermon. She always kept the bible on her nightstand next to where she slept.
I asked my brother if he minded if I took it with me, and he showed no interest in it. And now the bible was mine.
