Hi, I wanted to post this for all of you to read. Someone I know wrote it today. -Thanks-


My daughter lives. I sit here by the ICU bed, with its tubes & monitors watching every breath she takes. There is no movement from her body, no twitch of an eyelid, no stirring of any limb, not even a finger spasm. I know, because I have been watching all night. I have been praying for a movement these past 9 hours, any movement. I look at her and I see an adult lying there, tall, strong, her long glossy hair swept aside, her skin tinged with a faint tint of gold in the thick whiteness that our family inherits. Eyelids cover a pair of eyes that change like the ocean from blue to gray, and softness of her profile is a stark contrast to the strength of her spirit.

I know her spirit to live is strong, I remember when my wife was pregnant with her. We were told she was going to be abnormal, and the doctor said it would be unlikely she would reach adulthood. What we got was a very active & pretty little girl, who had an operation at age 2, which left a scar on her belly.  She will have more scars now. She arrived at the ER with a hole in her back that I could put two fingers into, between her shoulder blade & spine. Her lung collapsed. She lost at least a pint of blood in the first ten minutes.
And she still got up and took the gun from the coward who shot her.  
She was shot with a handgun, because she refused to let a coward shoot at a man in jealousy & anger. I was told the last words she quietly said were:
‘If you want to kill him, you’ll have to go through me first.’
She took a bullet for meant for another man. I’ve been to war in Korea, and I never saw that kind of courage. Took a bullet defending a man’s right to live, even if he was living wrong. Another who will never ever realize what a courageous, loving, strong spirit she is, nor see her enormous capacity to live, to love, to learn. She did all kinds of things women weren’t supposed to do, and thrived on it. She learned a martial art. She went to school and studied to be an engineer. She learned to shoot a gun. She wrote. She swam like a fish.
God, I ask where did it all come from? What did I do, undeserving wretch that I am, to deserve a daughter that was everything my son wasn’t?
I never went to her matches for belts and for target shooting. I even remember asking her why she wanted to fight & shoot, why not just walk away. Her soft reply was, ‘Papa, I may not have a choice.’
I stayed home and watched football when she got her diploma from the tech school. I never took her fishing or camping. I never asked her was what going on in her life. I always thought she’d be there, that there was always more time to tomorrow to call, to visit, to talk, to read the books she kept bringing over.
I look at her ravaged body lying before me and I wonder where she got all this passion for life  from. It didn’t come from me, or her mother. We are just ordinary people, nothing special or exceptional. I keep hoping that I’ll get a chance to tell her that. So I keep on watching her take every breath. I want to tell her things, all kinds of things. I want to not miss out on her life any longer. I’ve almost lost her altogether.
I will pick up a gun again & shoot with her. I’ll never be without one again. I will go find the man she defended and bring him here to watch her breathe. Then ask him how it feels to see a woman whom, regardless of his lack of love & respect for her, honored him and behaved with more courage than he & his army special forces training could ever have done in his entire life. I’d like to bring the coward who shot her to watch her breathe. I want the world to come & watch her breathe. Then ask them what it means to them to watch a child I love, but don’t know fight for life with every breath. So I sit here by the ICU bed with its tubes & monitors watching every breath she takes.
My daughter lives.

[:\]

BTT

Would you please convey our prayers to the family and keep us posted?

I'm only speaking for myself but trials of fire burn away the unimportant things and reveal the giants among us. Today we know of two.

I really don't know what to say here except that I feel for the family.... It is a sad situation....

whew.  May God be with you.

Tell her father to keep telling her that the AR15.com guys want her to come and personally shoot our rifles at the next BRC!  I bet everyone will let her rip as many mags as she wants!

Jesus, Lord in Heaven, Hear our prayers.
Please Lord, Heal my new Hero. We need her here with us, do not take her yet. We will understand Lord, if you do call her home... But we will never forget.
Amen

Sir,
I would gladly give up ONE YEAR of my life if it would buy you that Shooting trip with your girl.
(Wipes away tears)
Our hearts are with you man.

After 9/11 I thought I was no longer able to cry, tonight my tears are for her

as are my prayers

[USA]

Where could we read about the events described in this story?

god bless your friend and their daughter. i am praying for both of them.