Brian sat in his patrol car on December 25, 2005. He was parked on a wide turnout on I-395, where he could watch the cars heading north out of Spokane. He was looking for DUIs and speeders, aiming his Falcon at cars that looked like they were “over.” It was almost noon and there was a lull in traffic.
He put the handheld radar on the seat beside him and turned up the FM radio. Christmas music was playing and Brian tried to count the number of Christmases he had worked as a trooper. He thought it was nineteen, counting the one he was working.
When he was a young trooper, he worked the first Christmases because he needed the money. The later ones he worked so the younger men could be with their families. Ten service stripes on his shirtsleeve and the lines on his face marked the thirty years he had spent working the road.
For some reason, Brian remembered back to the big argument that went on in his family for years. It started when Brian was four or five years old. His mother was a devout Baptist and she figured that since Brian was her only son, he most certainly was going to be a Baptist minister. His dad, on the other hand, was a logger who worked in the mountains between Colville and the Canadian border. He owned five logging trucks, two skidders, a big yarder, and had seven fulltime employees. More than anything, he wanted his son to become a doctor—not a pastor—and for sure not a logger.
Dinnertime is when the battles took place. Young Brian would take a bite of meatloaf or pot roast and scrunch down in his chair as the shelling began. “My son will become a Baptist pastor and we will send him off to Bible College! When he graduates, he can come right back here to Colville Valley and pastor a nice church, close to his mother!”
The big logger’s face would get red and he would struggle to keep from saying something he might regret while he slept on the couch. “Woman, it will be a cold day in a hot place before that happens! That boy has the makings of a surgeon and I have not roasted and frozen in the woods most of my life to see my son live like a pauper. Doctors make good money and they get respect—not like a gyppo logger. When he is practicing medicine he can give lots of money to a church, but this boy is going to be a doctor!” The arguments took place at least once a week.
When Brian was eleven, his dad gave him a ring that was one-of-a-kind. The jeweler in Colville that crafted it told Brian’s dad that there was not another ring like it in the state. It had a wide gold band and in a strong setting in the center of was a large tiger eye stone. The jeweler placed the ring in a small box and as he wrapped it, he gave a few last words of advice to the logger. “I made the band man-sized, so he can grow into it. I will resize it for free if it’s too big by the time Brian is eighteen. The tiger eye stone is supposed to bring courage, energy, and luck. It was worn by Roman soldiers for protection in battle.”
Brian’s dad waited until his wife was at the grocery store before handed the gift to his son. “This is what a doctor wears, son. Keep it hidden until your ring finger is big enough to wear it. And don’t tell your mother about this ring, even if she buys you a wooden pulpit to practice preaching on.”
The summer of 1974 was hot, with lots of forest fires. In the early fall, the fire danger in the Colville National Forest was so bad that all logging was shut down for a couple of weeks. So, Brian’s dad declared a holiday and the family left for Spokane on a warm Saturday morning.
His parents were playing nice with each other; talking and chuckling as they passed by Deer Park and sailed on towards Spokane. The trooper that pulled in behind them paced his dad at twenty over and turned on his light bar and rolled the big logger over to the side. The trooper walked up to the driver’s side of the car and wrote his dad a ticket for less than he could have.
Brian watched every move the state trooper made and noted every detail of his uniform, hat, badge, and gun. He listened to the words the lawman said and how he conducted himself without arrogance, but with dignity. It was as if a hidden door opened for Brian—he knew beyond any doubt he had found his calling.
The next seven years flew for Brian. By his senior year, the ring fit perfectly and he wore it with pride, picturing a Roman soldier, strong and brave, or a Washington State Trooper. The battles for his future became wars; but even though his mom and dad were both stubborn, he was their son—and he had a double dose of resolve. He only grinned when they badgered him about his plans.
In late August, the letter Brian had hoped for came in the mail. His mother, with the look of a general who had lost a war, handed her son the envelope from the Washington State Patrol in Olympia. His dad’s scowl grew as Brian opened the letter and grinned from ear to ear. Brian had been accepted as a cadet and his class would start in January. There were several months of wailing and gnashing of teeth by his parents—but Brian became a trooper.
For thirty years he lived the life and wore the badge. Along the way, he lost his dad and his marriage. He had a daughter in Spokane whose husband was in Iraq.
His daughter and son-in-law had a daughter named Ellie, who was eight years old and was the light of Brian’s life. He adored the child, and she loved him back. She named Brian Paw Paw before she could walk.
Brian broke out of his reverie and checked a passing car with his Falcon. He thought again about his folks and the turns in the road that life took. Sometimes, lately, he wondered if becoming a pastor or doctor wouldn’t have been a better way. A trooper’s life wasn’t for everyone, though he had found himself, found his reason in it.
He had stopped speeders and drunks and been to a thousand wrecks, where without his help some people would have died. Many times he got blood on his uniform, trying to keep a victim from bleeding out or giving up. He remembered the one he called the “Christmas Wreck.”
Brian had been twenty-one, with only two years on the job. A family was headed north on Highway 2, towards Newport, when the father lost control of the car on black ice and slid into an oncoming milk truck.
Brian was the first on the scene. The trucker’s injuries were minor since he sat above the car. The father was unconscious with a concussion and several fractures. Brian saw the passenger, a woman, who was in bad shape. At least one arm was broken and she was covered in blood. She had been cut by a shard of glass across her upper chest and her brachial artery was spurting blood. Brian went around to her side and, with hands as strong as the logger who sired him, put direct pressure on the gouging wound.
Far away, he heard the ambulance siren. When he saw the blood the woman had lost, he felt helpless and alone. What happened next made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
A small boy, maybe six, had been behind the passenger seat, afraid to come out after the wreck. He was bruised, but had his seat belt on and was in one piece. The boy leaned over the seat and studied the trooper and his mother and father. Then, with words the young trooper would never forget, the boy prayed. “I call to you in heaven, and I know that you can hear me. I do not ask for myself, because I know that you will take care of me. I ask for my dad and my mother, that you help her to live. They need each other. Thank you.” The little boy watched the big trooper, who was covered with his mother’s blood, as his strong hand kept pressure on the wound. Eventually an ambulance arrived to take the victims to the hospital.
A call from Kim, the dispatcher, broke Brian’s reverie. She asked Brian to call her back on his cell phone. He always laughed and joked with Kim, even in the most stressful situations, as a way to maintain sanity. Kim wasn’t laughing or joking now. She was quiet and reserved. There was a long pause before she spoke. “Ummm, Brian, I have some bad news. Your daughter and granddaughter were involved in an accident about a half-hour ago. A drunk T-boned their car on the passenger side. Your daughter is in stable condition, but, umm, your granddaughter has a punctured lung, several fractures, and internal bleeding. They don’t expect her to make it.”
Brian was shaking as he ended the cell call. He told dispatch he was enroute to Deaconess Hospital. He noticed, as he drove down Division Street, that there were Christmas lights that he had never seen before. And he couldn’t remember Gonzaga University being lit up like it was. He was in a slow-motion grieving stage.
The best thing in the trooper’s life would soon be gone. Ellie was the sun that rose and set in his life. He parked his patrol car in the hospital parking lot and walked up to ER. He found a nurse he had known for years and asked her to tell him the truth about Ellie. “Brian, she is in bad shape. The prognosis is not good. She will be operated on in the next hour. The doctor on duty is young, but he is good. I’ll come find you when there is a change.”
Brian walked numbly, putting one foot in front of the other, to the empty waiting room. The grieving trooper stood six-feet-two. He was a mass of muscle and bone. He was a master marksman, and had never lost a fight—but as he sat in the deep cushioned chair he felt helpless. He covered his face in his hands as the worst nightmare of his life played on.
The place was empty as tears made his big hands glisten. After a few minutes, two voices came into the room, just two men passing through on their way to a family gathering. They lowered their voices when they saw the grieving trooper and were almost out the other door when one of the men stopped in mid-sentence. “It’s him! It’s the trooper with the ring!”
Five minutes later, one of the men sat next to Brian while his brother, Dr. Ashley, scrubbed for surgery to operate on Ellie. Dr. Ashley was known by his peers as one of the finest surgeons in the state of Washington.
For the second time in his life, Brian heard the voice, much older now, as a prayer was sent for help from above. “I call to you in heaven, because I know that you hear me. It is probably not fair that I call on you to pay my debt, but this is not the first time. This is the trooper who saved my mother from bleeding to death. My brother, the surgeon, would not have been born a year later if it were not for this man. I am asking not for myself, but for this man, that you keep his granddaughter in this world. He needs her. So, I ask you to pay my Christmas debt. Thank you”.
Pastor Ashley, who pastored the largest Baptist church in Spokane, sat beside the trooper, while three doors down his brother operated on the young girl. The surgeon labored, but so did his brother and also the angels, strong and kind, who came not to take her with them, but to bring her back.
Brian did not work on December 25, 2006. It turned out he needed most of the day as it took him six hours to assemble the playhouse he bought for Ellie and two hours for them to enjoy tea and cookies.
Tom Brosman,
Senior Telecommunications Specialist
Washington State Patrol