When I Invited My Family To My Award Ceremony, My Sister Scoffed, “We Don’t Have Time For That. I’m Going To A Concert Tonight.” Mom Agreed. Dad Added, “Don’t Take It Personally.” I Just Smiled. “Alright.” That Night, What They Saw Live On Television Left Them Staring At The Screen – Completely Speechless,

I felt the familiar urge to wave it off. In my head, it was still just code. Just pattern recognition.

Just me doing the thing no one else wanted to sit with for that many hours. Selma would not let me stay there. She reminded me of overnight shifts spent watching live dashboards.

Of the stubborn bug that had taken an entire weekend to trace. Of the time a dispatcher called our on call number in tears because the new system had moved a crew into position just in time. If recognition came, she said it would be less about clever math and more about refusing to walk away from a problem until it behaved.

The review stretched over the next few months. The committee sent lists of questions that forced me to explain our work in plain language. They asked for anonymized timelines of calls handled under the new system.

They wanted to know what it meant in human terms for an ambulance to arrive a few minutes sooner on a busy weekend night. At the office, we kept shipping updates and handling incidents while the decision sat somewhere far above us. It was easier to focus on the next deployment than to picture whatever room those people were sitting in with my name on their agenda.

When the official email finally arrived, I had to read it twice before it made sense. The seal of a federal agency sat at the top of the page. The message said I had been selected to receive a National Public Safety Innovation Award, that the ceremony would be held in a downtown hotel ballroom, and that the program would be recorded and broadcast as part of a larger event honoring different kinds of service.

There was a line about bringing guests, a brief note about possible media interest, and a link to a schedule thick with security instructions. For a day, I kept that news inside the walls of our building. I forwarded the email to Selma and my manager.

People stopped by my desk with stunned smiles and awkward high fives. Someone printed the invitation and taped it to the breakroom fridge. My team lead joked about practicing our posture in case a camera panned across the row.

Continue reading…