Two years ago, I went to a funeral for my little sister’s, best friend’s, grandmother, Susan.

At the funeral, no one was below age 60 besides my family and Susan’s children and grandchildren. The dark colored outfits all together under the sun-bleached tent in the middle of a graveyard. The air was so brisk everyone had a red nose and their hands shoved in their pockets.

The pastor walked up to the podium and began saying endearing things about Susan and stories about what she had done throughout her life. Mothering one child, helped to raise two grandchildren, being a nurse. The front row, filled with her nuclear family, was soaked with tears.

The pastor stepped down and invited people to come up and put in an amiable word. One by one, women and men lined up to give a short anecdote. The pastor sat down on the seat next to the podium and fixated his eyes on the speakers. I stayed standing and only half listening while I studied the other headstones.

I snapped back into it after about the seventh person had spoken. I looked at my mom and noticed her intently staring. I followed her eyes and immediately knew why. The pastor was a ghastly white and clammy all over.I thought he was going to throw up. Then, I saw his eyes roll back as he slumped over. My mom rushed over, interrupting the speeches.

“Move! Move! Help him! Help him!” she shouted while stumbling over the canes stacked in the aisle.

Soft classical music that had been humming in the background stopped. It was almost as if the whole crowd of people sucked in their air all at once. All eyes turned to the pastor, out cold on the mauve, satin chair.

Mary and O’Rein Colfer, Susan Frayser’s daughter and son-in-law, rushed to the scene. Both are highly respected doctors and seemed to know exactly what to do. In the blink of an eye they had seats moved out of the way, a blanket down, a crowd of people around them, and started performing CPR. They continued doing this while someone called an 911. The crowd had a hushed mumbling sound while all eyes were focused on the bewildering act in front of them. The pastor was dead. There was an eerie quiet. We stayed watching Mary and O’Rein. I thought I could almost hear the second hand ticking on my wristwatch. 46 seconds, a slight cough, and a shudder later - he woke up. The ambulance arrived fifteen minutes after.

I heard different medical terms being thrown out between the doctors. The ambulance passed the equipment to Mary and O’Rein. They hooked the pastor up to multiple wires and slowly sat him up and put him onto the stretcher. The pastor was awake by now and puzzled as to what was going on. Mary and O’Rein had saved him before the ambulance arrived. It was like a scene from a movie.

Standing by and watching the two of them save that man’s life was overwhelming. Everyone was scrambling to help and made way for Mary and O’Rein to put their skills to work. It was like all of the sudden I had an epiphany. In that moment it was decided, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be a doctor.