I helped a woman giving birth to her first child. Wrapping the infant in a blanket, holding him close so the chilling wind would not do him harm. I waited for the ambulance.

Later I stood on the expressway, braced against a cold north wind, as I held a small baby in my arms. There had been a wreck between a small car and an eighteen-wheeler. The mother was holding the child on her lap and was thrown into the dash and windshield crushing the little one.  I worked frantically trying to breathe life back into the little girl. She died in my arms. Her mother died just seconds before.

I held the hand of a grieving mother who had lost her daughter in a grinding car wreck. I stood in the emergency room watching a doctor struggle to save the life of a small boy, struck down by a drunk driver. I watched as the father stood next to the stretcher, wringing a small tennis shoe in his hands, staring at the procedure as if in another world. After the little fellow died, I shed my tears in the privacy of my patrol car on the parking lot behind the hospital, out of sight from my fellow officers and the public.

I dug frantically at a pile of brick and debris, trying to reach two police officers after a wall, from a burned-out building, fell on them. They were crushed to death as they sat in their patrol car that morning. I remember seeing a tough old police captain standing behind his car, in the alley, believing he was out of sight from everyone, weep as he held the cap of one of the officers in his hands. He quickly regained his composure after noticing my presence and barked off some stern orders about clearing the traffic out or something. I stood for a moment staring at him and him at me. He then looked away and I left.

I have stood at the front door of many residencies searching for the right words to break bad news to some family that had lost a loved one. I have seen suicides, homicides, rapes and every kind of crime on the books. I have forgotten more of them than I will remember. At times, I firmly believe that I have seen it all, but then comes tomorrow.

In my years I never got used to it. OH, I got to where I could function around it. I could get the job done in a professional manner, but I never got used to the hurt. After each one, something inside me was spent. I had to keep my composure. I could not show any emotion. I was supposed to be in charge; after all I am a cop and cops don’t cry; do they?