Don't Wait

"All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever." ~ I Peter 1:24

“We’re all going to die; that’s why we should dare to live.”
~ Keen A. Umbehr

Last week, just moments after I finished writing my column about the importance of telling the ones you love how much they mean to you, my daughter-in-law Erin called to tell me that her mother had been rushed to the hospital with a medical emergency, and they didn’t know if she was going to make it. Initially, she asked me to fly to Mississippi to watch the boys, but then Jared received a one-week leave of absence from the Navy, so they decided to drive to Ohio as a family. Thankfully, Erin’s mother pulled through, but she is not completely out of the woods yet, so please keep her in your prayers.

The unexpectedness of this health scare really illustrates the frailty of life and the importance of not waiting until it’s too late to say “I love you.”

“If you knew you only had one more day to live, who would you call, what would you say and what are you waiting for?” ~ Anonymous

Room 712
(Author Unknown)

The hospital was unusually quiet that bleak January evening, quiet and still like the air before a storm. I stood in the nurses' station on the seventh floor and glanced at the clock.

It was 9 P.M. I threw a stethoscope around my neck and headed for Room 712, last room on the hall. Room 712 had a new patient. Mr. Williams. A man all alone. A man strangely silent about his family.

As I entered the room, Mr. Williams looked up eagerly, but dropped his eyes when he saw it was only me, his nurse. I pressed the stethoscope over his chest and listened. Strong, slow, even beating. Just what I wanted to hear. There seemed little indication he had suffered a slight heart attack a few hours earlier.

He looked up from his starched white bed. "Nurse, would you -" He hesitated, tears filling his eyes. Once before he had started to ask me a question, but changed his mind. I touched his hand, waiting. He brushed away a tear. "Would you call my daughter? Tell her I've had a heart attack. A slight one. You see, I live alone and she is the only family I have."

His respiration suddenly speeded up. I turned his nasal oxygen up to eight liters a minute. "Of course I'll call her," I said, studying his face. He gripped the sheets and pulled himself forward, his face tense with urgency. "Will you call her right away - as soon as you can?"

He was breathing fast - too fast. "I'll call her the very first thing," I said, patting his shoulder. I flipped off the light. He closed his eyes, such young blue eyes in his 80-year-old face.

Room 712 was dark except for a faint night light under the sink. Oxygen gurgled in the green tubes above his bed. Reluctant to leave, I moved through the shadowy silence to the window. The panes were cold. Below a foggy mist curled through the hospital parking lot.

"Nurse," he called, "could you get me a pencil and paper?" I dug a scrap of yellow paper and a pen from my pocket and set it on the bedside table. I walked back to the nurses' station and sat in a squeaky swivel chair by the phone. Mr. Williams's daughter was listed on his chart as the next of kin. I got her number from information and dialed.

Her soft voice answered. "Janie, this is Sue Kidd, a registered nurse at the hospital. I'm calling about your father. He was admitted tonight with a slight heart attack and... "No!" she screamed into the phone, startling me. "He's not dying is he?" His condition is stable at the moment," I said, trying hard to sound convincing. Silence. I bit my lip.

"You must not let him die!" she said. Her voice was so utterly compelling that my hand trembled on the phone.

"He is getting the very best care," I assured her.

"But you don't understand," she pleaded. "My daddy and I haven't spoken. On my 21st birthday, we had a fight over my boyfriend. I ran out of the house. I haven't been back. All these months I've wanted to go to him for forgiveness. The last thing I said to him was, 'I hate you."

Her voice cracked and I heard her heave great agonizing sobs. I sat, listening, tears burning my eyes. A father and a daughter, so lost to each other. Then I was thinking of my own father, many miles away. It has been so long since I had said, "I love you."

As Janie struggled to control her tears, I breathed a prayer. "Please God, let this daughter find forgiveness."

"I'm coming. Now! I'll be there in 30 minutes," she said.

Click. She had hung up. I tried to busy myself with a stack of charts on the desk. I couldn't concentrate. Room 712; I knew I had to get back to 712.

I hurried down the hall nearly in a run. I opened the door. Mr.Williams lay unmoving. I reached for his pulse. There was none. "Code 99, Room 712. Code 99. Stat." The alert was shooting through the hospital within seconds after I called the switchboard through the intercom by the bed.

Mr. Williams had a cardiac arrest. With lightning speed I leveled the bed and bent over his mouth, breathing air into his lungs. I positioned my hands over his chest and compressed. One, two, three. I tried to count. At fifteen I moved back to his mouth and breathed as deeply as I could. Where was help? Again I compressed and breathed, compressed and ... He could not die!

The door burst open. Doctors and nurses poured into the room pushing emergency equipment. A doctor took over the manual compression of the heart. A tube was inserted through his mouth as an airway. Nurses plunged syringes of medicine into the intravenous tubing.

I connected the heart monitor. Nothing. Not a beat. My own heart pounded. "Oh God,” I prayed. “Don't let it end like this. Not in bitterness and hatred. His daughter is coming! Please let her find peace."

"Stand back," cried a doctor. I handed him the paddles for the electrical shock to the heart. He placed them on Mr. Williams's chest. Over and over we tried. But nothing. No response. Mr. Williams was dead. A nurse unplugged the oxygen. The gurgling stopped. One by one they left, grim and silent.

How could this happen? How? I stood by his bed, stunned. A cold wind rattled the window, pelting the panes with snow. Outside – everywhere – seemed a bed of blackness, cold and dark. How could I face his daughter?

When I left the room, I saw her standing against a wall by a water fountain. A doctor who had been inside 712 only moments before stood at her side, talking to her, gripping her elbow. Then he moved on, leaving her slumped against the wall. Such pathetic hurt reflected from her face. Such wounded eyes. She knew. The doctor told her that her father was gone. I took her hand and led her into the nurses' lounge. We sat on little green stools, neither saying a word. She stared straight ahead at a pharmaceutical calendar, glass-faced, almost breakable-looking.

"Janie, I'm so, so sorry," I said. It was pitifully inadequate.

"I never hated him, you know. I loved him," she said.

“God, please help her,” I prayed. Suddenly she whirled around towards me. "I want to see him," she exclaimed.

My first thought was, “Why put yourself through more pain? Seeing him will only make it worse.” But I got up and wrapped my arm around her and we walked slowly down the corridor to Room 712. Outside the door I squeezed her hand, wishing she would change her mind about going inside. She pushed open the door.

We moved to the bed, huddled together, taking small steps in unison. Janie leaned over the bed and buried her face in the sheets. I tried not to look at her during this sad, sad good-bye. I backed against the bedside table. My hand fell upon a scrap of yellow paper. I picked it up. It read:

My Dearest Janie,

I forgive you. I pray you will also forgive me. I know that you love me. I love you, too.

Daddy

My hands were shaking as I handed the note to Janie. She read it once. Then twice. Her tormented face grew radiant. Peace began to glisten in her eyes. She hugged the scrap of paper.

"Thank You, God," I whispered, looking up at the window. A few crystal stars blinked through the blackness. A snowflake hit the window and melted away, gone forever. Life seemed as fragile as a snowflake on the window.

Thank you, God, that relationships, sometimes fragile as snowflakes, can be mended together again, although sometimes there is not a moment to spare.

I slipped away from the room and hurried to the phone. I would call my father. I would say, “I love you.”

********************

The Last Time
By Sheryl Hale Black
(www.scrollcardsonline.com)
Used by Permission

If I knew it would be the last time
That I would see you walk out the door,
I would hold you close and kiss you,
And beg God to allow me more.

If I knew it would be the last time
I would hear your voice so clear,
I would tape each beautiful word,
So I could replay it year after year.

If I knew it would be the last time,
To stop and say "I love you,"
I would spare that extra moment,
And not assume that you know I do.

If I knew it would be the last time
I would be here to share your day,
I would put all aside to be with you,
For a memory that would never fade.

With our hopes for our tomorrows,
And our hopes for peaceful nights,
I pray that we never overlook,
Those times to make things right.

But just in case I could be wrong,
And our tomorrows we may never see,
I'd like to tell you how much I love you.
And that you mean everything to me.

Tomorrow is not promised to anyone,
And today could be our last chance,
To hold our loved ones tight and say,
Those things that only we can.

So if you're looking for tomorrow,
To kiss and hold the ones you love,
Tomorrow may never come for you,
Only today is given to us from above.

Take the time to say "I'm sorry,"
"Thank you" or "It's okay."
For surely once you clear the air,
You will never regret this day.

To hold your loved ones close and say
All those things you feel within,
And let them know how much you care,
And how your love will never end.

You mean the world and more to me,
You were given to me from God above.
And forever throughout eternity,
You will always have my love.


“…we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord.” ~ II Corinthians 5:6b (NLT)