Dep 2004

My name is Kevin Hsing-Kuang Klement. I was born in the sunshine state of sunny south Florida. On a late summer evening my mother and father welcomed me into the world on July 11th 1986. I was to join a long line of native Floridians each with their own rich culture and history. My parents met while my mother was still attending nursing school at Barry University in Miami. Now to explain my name, it reflects my ethnic lineage to show respect for my ancestors. Kevin is Irish, Hsing-Kuang is Chinese that means bright and glorious, and finally Klement is German. My mother is Chinese and my father is Irish/German. I like to say that my sister and I are hybrids. I am 5’10” with a medium athletic build, very tan, some would say handsome with well-kept dark hair and deep brown eyes. Most people mistake me for being Hawaiian or sometimes from South America. Kelly my younger sister is very beautiful. She is 5’8” with a slender build and very tan. She has long dark brown hair and natural blond high lights from years of sunlight kissing her hair. It is just the four of us now my sister along with my parents and I but it was not always this way. The years of my youth were much like any Floridians child hood. My parents raised me in a very strict Christian household. I attend catholic school my whole life until I left for college. During the week I was always dedicated to school, my chores, and karate. My father is a contractor and I was fortunate enough that at the time he made enough money to allow my mother to stay at home and raise me full time. The weekends were dedicated to the ocean. My father taught me how to free dive, fish, how to run a boat and boogie board. Later I eventually started standing on the boogie board and I taught my self-how to surf, my real passion. Kelly joined the family on October 5th 1992. We call her the hurricane baby because my mom was still pregnant with her during Hurricane Andrew. My family was fortunate to survive the storm with minimal loss of property. I was very young but I recall that my parents opened our home to many friends and extended family to stay with us while their homes were being fixed. I just thought we were having an endless sleep over party for weeks on end. Looking back it was a very powerful lesson. I can remember making ice bags around the clock from our generator powered refrigerator and driving them to my uncle in Miami. His house was leveled; he was living out of a tent. The neighborhood he lived in looked like a nuclear bomb had gone off. There was nothing to

trigger a memory. There were no street signs, traffic lights, no trees just a barren wasteland. My uncle refused to leave because of looters. He slept with a shotgun in a chair on his driveway to protect what he had left of his home. Later I attended St. Thomas Aquinas High School (STA), it has groomed people such as Michael Irving the famous wide receiver, Bradley Ally the bronze Olympic swimmer, India Trotter a professional soccer player, and Brian Piccolo a famous football player just to name a few. Here I honed my skills mentally, spiritually, and physically. The student body and faculty really treat each other as a family. Black, white, male or female we are all Raiders and we all hold this special in our hearts. I wrestled to stay in shape we made it to states every year. Our football team won states almost every year as well and graduated Tavares Gooden a football player who now plays for the Baltimore Ravens. For me the real special part of high school was that it was 10 minutes to the beach. If there was a swell blowing in waves the entire student body was out at 5:00 am waiting for the sun to rise to get some surfing in before school. We called it dawn patrol and at 7:00 am there was a mass exodus of kids racing to get to school on time by 7:30 am. Most of the time I did not make it and racked up a fair amount of detentions for being late. It was also at this time my karate and fighting career would reach its pinnacle. I was 18 and had been training for over 10 years at that point. Yes I started karate around 6 or 7 years old. My instructor finally had giving me permission to test for my 1st degree black belt. The test is four hours long and consists of 5 rounds of fighting MMA style like you see on TV, you are expected to perform all your kata’s and self defense techniques, all followed by a 5k that you have to complete under 30 minutes. There is a belt ceremony where you kneel to your knees take your old belt off and wipe your literal blood, sweat and tears on your new belt. Then you tie your black belt around your waist and rise to your feet as a 1st degree black belt. I was so exhausted my father had to help me stand. It was the first time that my father expressed he was proud of me as he wept with pride. My father is not one to show emotion he is a very solid tough love kind of man. For me receiving the black belt was a milestone it proves that if you endure and perceiver you can accomplish anything.

Next I attend Paramedic school at Broward College. After that I went straight into the Coral Springs Fire Academy. I got hired as a paramedic for Medics Ambulance Service. We did critical care interfaculty transports, which means hospital to hospital, usually from one intensive care unit to another. As well as 911 emergency response calls for Lake Worth Fire Department and Palm Beach County Fire Rescue. I absolutely loved working there. It was 24 hours on duty with 48 hours off and once a month a week off paid to relive the stress from the job. I saw a lot of very sick and injured people. It is a very rewarding career but very humbling at the same time. The lesson I take away from that time in my life is to live life to the fullest. Never be afraid to tell some one how you feel. Give as many hugs and kisses as you can. Travel as much as you can. Live the life you love! One day you could be driving down the road, some idiot runs a red light, he hits you and everything you know can change in an instance. After the housing market and economy crashed our company could not sustain the 911 emergency response side of the business. They started closing down firehouses and pulling trucks off the road to decrease budget cost. Eventually they started to let people go unfortunately myself and some of my friends were apart of the down sizing plan. I am not bitter about it I understand business is business. I just viewed it as this is a new chapter in my life. I do miss the practical jokes, good food, and racing through traffic horns blaring lights flashing, it’s a great feeling. Just recently I have moved to Orlando. I now work at Dr. Phillips Hospital in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). The job is different but the medical discipline is still the same. I also have taken this time to go back to school in hopes of getting my bachelors of science in nursing. My manager has told me on more than one occasion there is a job waiting for me in my unit as a nurse after I graduate. I hope to gain experience and knowledge from my senior nursing staff to prepare me for later in my medical career. My ultimate goal would be to become a flight nurse on the helicopter for Orlando Health. The qualifications are numerous but at a minimum you need to be a paramedic and a nurse. Starting salary rage is any where from 50k to 60k a year. Which is ok by me I was never really in it for the money. I love the rush of adrenaline I get from helping people. The schedule is what really appeals to me I only have to work three 12-hour shifts per week.

Which leaves plenty of time for diving, fishing, surfing or boxing what ever I’m in the mood for. In the years to come who knows what life will bring, I’ll just roll with the punches. I hope that I can settle down, find a nice girl and start a family. I want to spread the love of the ocean and teach my children how fruitful the sea can be. Recently I’ve been looking into buying land in Nicaragua. It reminds of my travels and surf sessions in Peru and Costa Rica. I would like to build a surf camp style resort there for people of all skill levels. Most people have this misconception that the ocean is this scary place. I blame this on JAWS. I want to help people open their eyes and see how much fun they have been missing. I also would like to use my medical career to help the local people get the desperate medical attention they need. The capital of Nicaragua is Managua a booming modern city but just an hour out side of the city is a very poor starving 3rd world country. Even with all the poverty Nicaragua remains a beautiful place. This is my paradise and my retirement. When the day of my death arrives I would like to be cremated. I also would like a catholic memorial service to be held at the church where I was baptized. Later I hope that my friends and family would respect my wishes and spread my ashes at my favorite surf brake just like the watermen before me. I hope that my eulogy would read something like this…. We are all gathered here today to celebrate the life of Kevin Klement. He was a son, a brother but most of all he was a friend. He was always smiling and he was great at remembering people’s names. Kevin would shake your hand out of respect the first time you meet him but the second time you saw him he would hug you like he had known you for years. Always asking how you were doing, “ Hey buddy how’s the wife and kids?” To give you an example of how great his personality was I’ll tell you a short story. We were surfing our home brake at Deerfield Beach pier it was big that day10 foot or higher breaking waves. Some how Kevin’s board smacked him in the head and opened up a pretty big gash. He paddle in and ran up to the lifeguard and asked for help. People were running over to help him because he was covered in blood. It looked like he was wearing a red tang top but it was all blood coming from the gash in his head. The lifeguard sat him down and was real nervous while he was holding pressure trying to stop the

bleeding. Kevin asked him for a mirror and grabbed the lifeguard’s arm. Real politely he said, “ I’ll walk you through how to apply the pressure dressing sir don’t worry we are going to get through this.” He received 9 staples to close up his wound. The point of the story is even in Kevin’s time of need he was always willing to help others. That’s just the way he was. Writing this assignment has really helped me put my life into perspective. It has given me great insight on where I have come from and made my future path clearer. Wherever life takes me I hope that I will always stay true to my self. When the day of my judgment comes I hope I can look back on my life and be proud. Some one once told me that when you lay your head down on your pillow at night and think to your self I am happy with where I have been, with where my life is going, and should I not wake in the morning I am happy with the way I will be remembered, then you truly are a pure soul. !Pura Vida! (Costa Rican saying in Spanish meaning “Pure life!”)