In the world we live in today, there are so many days throughout the calendar year where one can sit down and reminisce about what happened on which particular day. These days often feature a tragic event that has happened, a historic battle that occurred, or the birthday of someone famous. These days, which are often translated into national holidays, can be remembered for the exact date they occurred on years before.
I think the same can go for events that happened in your personal life. There are a few memorable instances that have been seen in my past and I will never forget the dates on which they occurred. This takes me to the reason for this post.
August 13th.
I go back ten years ago on a hot, humid day on August 13th, 2000. I'm 13 years old and only three months away from my next birthday. I had recently wrapped up my baseball from the summer and was gearing up for another football season with Berlin Pop Warner Football.
Being the active kid that I am, I was running around the neighborhood that day with a few of the local kids. Our neighborhood games consisted of all types of activities: backyard baseball, video games, capture the flag, etc. This day consisted of tennis and a few of us were going to play down the street.
I had been running in and out of the house all day and my dad was really getting annoyed with it. I kept leaving the door open and with the cost of air conditioning, my dad had to keep going to shut the door. On the last time I ran out of the house, I took what I needed and headed down the street. I then realized I had forgotten the balls and headed back in. My head was down and I charged back into the house. I looked up...only to see a four pane glass window directly in my way.
My hand reached to stop the door.
What happened next was a pool of blood, screams of terror, and shattered glass everywhere. My arm had been lacerated by the glass and my right forearm had been torn open nearly to the bone.
My parents remained calm as best as they could and made the call with 911 to have an ambulance sent to the house. A short time later, the ambulance arrived and took me to Atlantic General Hospital to be evaluated. I was told that the cut was severely deep and that they could not handle me there. They then sent me to Peninsula Regional Medical Center, where I was looked at and seen by Dr. Vincent Perotta. They saw that my cut was millimeters away from the central artery and by the grace of God, I had missed many other vital areas. I had still severed several tendons. I would immediately go into surgery and after 50 stitches to my forearm, the healing process would begin.
I never realized until later how lucky I was. I had nearly lost my right arm and although I faced a few months of rehabilitation, I fully recovered.
Fast forward to the present and it's exactly ten years later. I find myself in the sixth inning of a 4-4 tie featuring El Paso against Pensacola at Cohen Stadium. The bases are loaded with no outs and I'm called out of the bullpen and into the contest. The first batter grounds out innocently to our shortstop before the following hitter swings into a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning. The crowd, which was nearly 7,000 strong, erupted in excitement.
I would go on to throw two more innings of shutout baseball and our 13-game losing streak would finally come to an end. It was the first win since I was injured on July 2, 2009.
My first win of the year on the day where I almost lost my arm 10 years earlier. My how God works in strange way.....
God Bless.
