At 1:30 A.M., My Nephew Whispered From a Hospital Bed That He Didn’t Fall Off His Bike — The Doctor Confirmed My Worst Fear

The phone shattered the silence of my bedroom at 1:30 in the morning, dragging me from the edge of sleep with the jarring insistence that only comes with emergency calls. In my thirty-two years as a firefighter in Calgary, I’d learned to distinguish between wrong numbers and genuine crisis before my feet hit the floor. This was crisis.

“Uncle Bill, continue reading …