Five pearls. I admit it was a strange thing for the woman to say to me. I had never planned to be a hero that January morning in 2013. Afterward I told reporters all the credit went to God. I had simply been where he wanted me to be. Then a woman came up to me at work and said, “God will bless you. He will give you five pearls to call on him in times of great need.” I thanked her, but I really wasn’t sure what she meant. Someday I would be.
Two days before Thanksgiving 2022, all I was thinking about was sitting down to a turkey dinner with my wife, Dianne, and sharing some scraps with “the kids,” our two dogs, the center of our lives.
Jaydon, our three-year-old golden-doodle, was the older one. We’d had Faith, a tiny doodle puppy, only a few weeks. From the day we brought her home, Jaydon had devotedly looked
