Horror faced by courageous few

Most of us never have to face the horror.
We go through our daily lives oblivious to the awfulness that seems to lurk just beneath the surface.
We go to work, we hug our kids, we worry about things that seem big at the time — finances, the weather, politics, our jobs — but are really trivial when it comes to matters of life and death.
We are the lucky ones.
Others — by calling, by profession, by instinct — have a tougher path.
They’re the ones called out in the middle of the night on an ambulance run to pick up the cooling corpse of an infant.
They’re the ones who notice the wounds.
And they’re the ones trying to piece together the facts in an interrogation room.
They’re the ones trying to coax the truth out of its hiding place.
They’re the ones who don’t want to believe what they are seeing and hearing, even as they see and hear it.
And they’re the ones who must exert superhuman control when — in an instant — the truth does crawl out into the light and the horror is laid out before them in all its awfulness.
They’re the ones who must stifle screams and fight back the impulse toward violence and retribution.
The rest of us just read about it in the headlines.
We shake our heads, mutter our words of dismay and wonder what the world is coming to.
But before we turn the page, before we move on to the sports section or the comics, we — the lucky ones who don’t have to face the horror head-on — need to pause for a moment or two to reflect on those we rely upon to do just that: The people who notice the wounds, who piece together the facts and who coax truth out from the darkness.
And then we need to thank them for their courage in taking the tougher path. — J.R.