RIP, soldier.
I am grateful to his service and that he was able to return home to his family where they could put their arms around him (not killed over seas). I am so sorry for their loss - no doubt you begin to heave a sigh of relief that your soldier came home and have no reason to really dread an amusement park. Prayers up for their painful, sudden loss.
A man at my church was hospitalized with something like pneumonia and when he awoke a few days later - he was a double amputee. What a shock. But even from the hospital bed he had a sense of humor about it when the pastor visited -shocking the pastor by saying something about being ‘half the man I used to be’. Well this gentlemen learned to walk with prosthetic legs and returned to the middle east to take donated wheel chairs and prosthetics to adults and children with limb loss. He is quite the example for them.
He tells the story of going on one of those roller coasters that go upside down in a corkscrew motion. When the coaster reached top speed, the little girl seated facing him was staring at him open mouthed - his prosthetic legs had begun to twirl at impossible angles back toward and over his shoulders - when the coaster then flipped through a series of corkscrews, first one prosthetic limb and then the other shot from him pant legs to the horror of the little girl. The sight was so absurd that he began to laugh uncontrollably and as the coaster swept him backward toward the finish line, his empty pant legs rippled at her like wind socks (he says she clutched her own legs at the knees, fearing they too would just blow off, she didn’t know his were prosthetics). When the harness came up she shot from her seat screaming. It was not his intention to scare her or neglect her fear, he was just so shocked himself. Hearing his story - well I guess I had hoped it was safe for amputees to ride.
I hope that the poor fellah seated behind him (or standing below on the fairway), who got two prosthetic legs slamming into his face at 90+ mph, found it as funny!
Regards,