Overcoming (eBook)

Zachary D. Larson (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2020 | 1. Auflage
200 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-0071-5 (ISBN)

Infos

At seventeen, Zachary Larson was facing high school graduation with horrible grades and a daunting future of barely scraping by in life. Zach tells his story of how making the decision to attend military boarding school changed his life by establishing principles and tools that changed the trajectory of his life. At twenty-seven, the compounding effect of discipline, consistency and efficiency helped him obtain his promotion to the rank of Captain in the United States Army. Now he is in a position to coach, lead and mentor the next generation and offer advice, experience and guidance to reach excellence. Overcoming tells the story of Zachary Larson's childhood. Despite all the odds against him in a traumatic event that ripped his family apart, he transitioned his mind from a passive, victimized and negative mentality to setting his sites on goals, aspirations and excellence. Join him on his journey and learn how to take any negative thought process or traumatic event and channel it into an unstoppable force to reach your full potential.

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At seventeen, Zachary Larson was facing high school graduation with horrible grades and a daunting future of barely scraping by in life. Zach tells his story of how making the decision to attend military boarding school after high school changed his life by establishing principles, tools and discipline that redirected the trajectory of his potential. At twenty-seven, the compounding effect of discipline, consistency and efficiency helped him obtain his promotion to the rank of Captain in the United States Army, continue building a business with his wife and raise awareness for a PTSD charitable foundation his family established for veterans in need. Now he is in a position to coach, lead and mentor the next generation by offering lessons from experience and guidance to reach excellence. Overcoming tells the story of Zachary Larson's life from the perspective of a young adult. Despite all the odds against him from a traumatic event that ripped his family apart, he transitioned his mind from a passive, victimized mentality to taking responsibility over his own life, setting his sites on goals, and executing achievements. Physical, mental, spiritual and emotional health is all connected to form each individual's current state of fulfillment in life. Join him on his journey and learn how to take any negative thought process or traumatic event and channel it into an unstoppable force to reach your full potential.

Textauszug

Chapter 1

The Abyss

Staring out the window of an enormous health center in Portland, Oregon, Denice Larson took a minute to reflect on one of the rare days of sunshine in the Northwest. Denice made the decision to work overtime to help pay her family’s bills. She woke up feeling off as if something terrible was going to happen. Before she left for work, she asked Rod, her husband to promise he would watch Meghan and keep her safe. The weather was beautiful for a day in March 1992, nothing was out of character, except a gut-wrenching feeling in her stomach that something was going to happen; she just didn’t know what. Her thoughts continued to race back to a conversation she previously had with Rodney.

She recalled saying, “I have this feeling that something terrible is going to happen to one of our children, like one of them may die or something.”

“I feel the same way. It is a concern for me also,” Rodney explained.

Nothing provoked these feelings or thoughts; it was just a feeling, a sixth sense.

Denice tended to her patients as she normally did. She always made light conversation and performed her job as an RN, which was her dream since she was a little girl. Denice was a trauma nurse, working relentlessly each and every day to save lives. Her frequent patients were law enforcement officers who had received gunshot wounds while engaged in firefights near Portland, Oregon. Other times, celebrities would pay a visit to Emmanuel Hospital, their stories locked away under HIPPA regulations for eternity. That was Denice, a silent hero who quietly tended to the wounded and saved people’s lives on a daily basis. Regardless of how the day looked or felt, when that alarm rang in the morning, she got ready, made a cup of coffee (one of her favorite routines) and headed out the door to see what life would bring her at Emmanuel Hospital’s doorstep.

While Denice was at work, Rodney would load up his group of cub scouts and head off to church. Near dusk, as the sun started to fall, Meghan Catherine Larson, his daughter, and Rodney Larson arrived at the church, at 6:45 p.m. As a youth group leader, Rodney worked with children of younger ages. Conducting a cub-scout function at church on a Wednesday night was the norm. He had made a massive racetrack for the cub scouts to race their derby cars, which were about a foot in length and four inches in width. They were carved from a wood block and made with wheels.

Children of all ages brought in their homemade derby cars to see which one traveled the fastest in a race. This was a big night, one that constantly excited him. Proud of his work, he began to unlock the doors of his van and prepared to unload the massive racetrack that was in pieces and needed to be assembled in time for the race. He unbuckled Meghan from the van and sat her down on the curb with her bottle while continuing to unload the track from the back of his van. Realizing the doors of the church were locked, he called one of the pastors to bring the keys so that he could begin setting up the racetrack inside.

The wind was picking up and darkness was closing in. Meanwhile, children were all about, talking excitedly about the race to come and whether they would do well or not. Twenty children ran about the parking lot, chasing each other. Meghan, only a few feet from Rodney, sat quietly not doing anything, just watching as children ran with excitement. Pulling in the parking lot with the babysitter, Christopher Larson, Rod’s eldest son, arrived.

The babysitter had brought him to the church to race his own derby car with the other children. The babysitter exited her vehicle and sprinted to him screaming, “Rod, Meghan just got hit by a car!” Rod stopped unloading the racetrack, turned to look at where Meghan had been sitting and found her lying on the asphalt in the parking lot, unconscious, a few feet away from where she originally was.

Time slowed down as adrenaline began pumping through his veins, exploding him into action. From that point on, everything was a blur. After the incident occurred, Rodney was informed that the music minister had driven in with the key to unlock the church in a gold Chevrolet Suburban; he had hit Meghan with the vehicle, sucking her into the wheel well and spitting her back out on to the asphalt in the church parking lot. Christopher and the babysitter watched in horror in the parking lot as they saw the entire event unfold. Christopher, six years old at the time, sobbed to the babysitter, “Why is Meghan’s head caved in?”

“Call life flight immediately!” Rod screamed. He quickly cleared away the people around Meghan. Remembering the first aid training he had learned in the United States Marine Corps, he tended to her bleeding as much as he could. As he held pressure on her wounds, the environment around him began to vibrate with the helicopter descending into his location above. Feeling the wind from the blades of the aircraft buffet the back of his neck, he looked up to see the helicopter quickly land twenty yards away.

A flight paramedic jumped out of the aircraft, checked her airway and breathing, and took over the pressure on the bleeding, careful not to cause further harm to Meghan, who was barely clutching to life in his arms. He secured Meghan carefully and brought her back to the aircraft. Within seconds they flew to Emmanuel Hospital. Rod collapsed and the earth shook in response. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and when he looked up, it was the pastor of the church with the key to the building in his hand. They immediately began driving to the hospital and arrived shortly after.

He met Denice at the hospital and told her about the events that had unfolded. She immediately burst into tears at the thought of her child entering the emergency room she worked at. The doctors performing emergency surgery on Meghan would not let Denice assist because of her emotional and mental state. She was unable to control her emotions and mental thought processes; it would be an unnecessary risk to Meghan, even though Denice was an expert in her field. Rod and Denice were ushered into another room, and Meghan was transported into the operating room. They both quickly learned that both her carotid arteries were cut on both sides, causing her to bleed out. Upon administering control of the bleeding, the doctors said they could keep her alive indefinitely, but she would be nonresponsive for the rest of her life. When confronted with the decision to keep her alive or not, they both decided to let her go to heaven and be with the angels.

Following this grim event, Rod and Denice drove home to their apartment. They pulled in, not fully present as they processed the emotional trauma that occurred earlier that day. Rod opened the door and found Gordon Scherdnik Jr. standing in the parking lot, who had come to check in with his sister Denice. Gordon gave them both hugs as he was at a loss for words. Gordon put his hand on Denice’s shoulder and held his sister in his overarching frame, as she quietly sobbed. Rod stared at the ground, not mentally present as he continued to process what had occurred. Life can end in an instant. With his daughter’s life taken from him, he began to question himself if life was even worth living anymore.

Gordon Jr. picked up little six-year-old Christopher and carried him crying up the stairs to their apartment. Gordon was in shock and just ran through the motions in what he thought was the right thing to do. That night, being stressed out, he felt like he had a nail stuck in his left shoulder and could not breathe. Years later, he would always get asked during his echocardiograms, when was it that he had a heart attack? The rhythm is always off when he gets his annual exam. He could only wonder that it was during this time period as he never had anything like the pain since that horrifying event.

The next day, Gordon Scherdnik Jr. received a phone call. He was taking a shower, when his wife from outside the shower said, “Your sister called. There’s been an accident. Meghan has died.”

“No, no, no!” he screamed from the shower. He was unaware that she had died at Emmanuel Hospital, where his sister Denice worked, the night before. Rod and Denice had not mentioned anything to him. He called his sister Denice, and she told him about the horrific accident that occurred that took her daughter’s life.

“How could this happen? I have always kept these kids helmeted and safe,” she said to him over the phone. Denice, in spite of all her precautions, experienced a parent’s worst nightmare. Hell had unleashed itself on earth that previous evening. Rod and Denice were mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually shattered. Everything they knew as life was broken. “There was no hair on my daughter’s head when she arrived at the hospital,” she quivered over the phone.

Gordon exited the shower, threw on a Henley and a pair of jeans and headed for the door to go to work. As he turned, the alarm clock in his bedroom sprang alive with conversation. The radio talk show host began to chat at his listeners, explaining the horrific events of the accident that occurred the night before. It was almost as if the host was trying to generate attention to his radio show. “Little Meghan Larson died…” Gordon closed his fist and punched the alarm clock, making an impact on the wall and shattering the radio into a million pieces.

Gordon went up to the church after work and began scrubbing leftover residue out of the asphalt where Meghan had her last moments of conscious life. There was no blood on the asphalt, but only leftover gray matter from where her head had been crushed by the vehicle. It was all...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 14.2.2020
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• ISBN-10: 1-0983-0071-8 / 1098300718
• ISBN-13: 978-1-0983-0071-5 / 9781098300715