As a nurse, I have dealt with death and dying a lot. But it took some quiet bravery on my part, when my Dad died. It was early morning, and I couldn’t sleep so I went to the hospital. I was holding his hand and telling him a funny story about me always losing my rental car in parking lots. He was comatose, but I know he heard me. He took one final breath and died. I waited with him for over 3 hours, because I didn’t want to disturb the family at such an early time. So I cleaned up his hospital room, got rid of all the diapers and other medical equipment with the help of a nurse, and then I bathed him and combed his hair and put chapstick on his lips. When his wife arrived, he looked very peaceful. And I think that helped her, although she was very hysterical and I had to comfort her in the midst of my grief. I think
that is my bravest moment.
When I was 15, I was a Boy Scout and was asked to join a neighbor and his two young-teenage boys on a summer excursion to Lake Powell. We were in 2 small boats with outboard engines, and on a certain morning the oldest of the two boys had done his turn at the tiller of the one with the more modern engine but had never used the other until that moment. He got the thing cranked and we were moving through the water and he bumped the throttle to a higher position accidentally. He only knew the other engine, which had the controls on the tiller handle, and he got panicked. I kept yelling instructions to him over the engine noise but he dropped the tiller entirely and put his head in his hands and started crying. Little motor-canoe is now lurching around in random loops and dives through the water and then headed for a cliff. So I stand up and walk across it quickly and haul off the throttle between lurches.
Then there was the time I was in college at SUNY/Old Westbury down the hall from self-styled gangsa rappers 
The dorm I had been in the previous year had suddenly been dedicated to some specific purpose and I’d been randomly assigned to Bldg 7. By sheer luck of the draw, my suite mates were friends of recent SUNY/COW alumnus LL Cool J and they had hopes of following in his wake. I, meanwhile, was taking 23 credits. We hit serious difference-of-opinion territory over the issue of reasonable quiet-down time, with me taking the position that after 1 AM it was reasonable for me to insist that I not be kept awake by amplified music, live or recorded, whereas their position was that I should shut up and get myself moved out if I didn’t like it, because they were working on their big chance and had been there first. But the Student Affairs personnel acted helpless and spoke of waiting lists and an inability to move me unless I could find someone who’d trade, so after things escalated through unsuccessful peaceful attempts, the next time they were practicing at 2 AM I put on my big heavy hiking boots, stalked down the hall, kicked the shit out of their door, kicked it open when they turned the knob, and stood there in their room yelling eyeball to eyeball back at them and their death threats until Public Safety came to see what the hell was going on. I had a new dorm (a double provided to me as if it were a single!) the next day
My bravest moment happened February 10th 1997.
My daughter was born 5 weeks early. I woke up in the middle of the night, when my water broke. There was blood everywhere. I remained calm and called the hospital to tell them I was on my way in. When I got there my doctor and the surgeon where already there, I had a beautiful baby girl less than 45 minutes later. I never realized how much danger she was in until several days later.