Our son was around 13. I don’t remember what had happened, but I was using the occasion to teach a valuable ‘life lesson.’ Adam turned to me suddenly and interrupted. “Dad, why does everything have to be a teaching opportunity for you?”

          He caught me off guard and made me laugh. I hadn’t started out in fatherhood to be Ward Cleaver, but I guess I just kind of evolved into the Beaver’s dad. I am, however, still the same. It applies primarily to me. So, with that in mind, I have considered what the recent events in my life have taught me.

          Triple by-pass heart surgery is almost routine anymore. A lot of people are walking around with the tell-tale scar on their chest. But when it happens to you, it doesn’t seem so routine. It is extremely invasive, it is extremely painful and it is extremely personal. The first thing I learned, I guess, was how my personal ordeal affected those around me. First in that group were my caregivers.

          My nurses in intensive care were awesome. I was in ICU for a day and a half. I had two nurses during that time, 12 hours on, 12 hours off. They were caring and compassionate ladies. One is to have a child in September. Both are married. Both are dedicated to the principles of their careers. Starting with these two ladies, I began to find out just how deep the pastor thing runs with me. Just a few casual questions from me and they both began to tell me their hopes and plans and fears of life. One of the ladies apologized to me for going on, but I told her it was OK, this was what I did and it was very important to me to do it right then. Before I left ICU I got to pray with both ladies. Once I was in step-down, they both made it a point to pop in on me.

          My nurses in step-down were another story. Marsha even has one she would like to meet in a dark ally. These were the nurses to who triple by-pass is routine. Mostly, they just didn’t have that compassionate gene in them. One walked in early one morning and introduced herself. “Just so we understand each other, I’ve been doing this for 24 years and I am doing it for the 401K.” We talked a bit and laughed about something and she really was a good nurse with a sense of humor. But the others, just putting in their hours. Until my last day and a half. For 24 of those 36 hours I had Sabrina, who was great. However, while the nurses were not impressive in step-down, the aides were amazing. These are young people, male and female, who are in nursing school and are working as aides for school credit and for a paycheck. There were two of these young people who I worry may not make it as nurses. They have too much compassion, too much caring. They worry. A nurse has to be able to walk out of a room and leave that patient behind and go on to the next. But, they were almost too involved.

          That was the nurses and the aides. As a whole, housekeeping at Lutheran was pretty sad. I would rather not go into that. Just sad. All the people that drift in and out were just doing their jobs. My step-down room opened up to the nurses’ station. Nurses and other ‘health care professionals’ sat there and talked about their love lives, what they had for dinner, told raunchy jokes (those were told most by the doctors, I believe), talked about patients and so on. Even with my door shut I could still hear them. I don’t much care for watching TV, but I started keeping mine on and turned up.

          So, what I learned about the people around me was that people are people, regardless of their profession. Some are really fine people, some not so much. But I did not meet one single person in the hospital who refused me praying with them. That is the big lesson. People are people, and they all need Christ.

          Another thing I learned about; pain. I have always had a high tolerance. I am the guy who, when I was going to have my eyeballs cut open, requested not to be put to sleep so I could see my vision return. They went along with it and I was fine. This time, though, I discovered pain. In any medical situation they ask you to rate your pain level, from 1-10. I have found a new 10. This surgery requires three separate incisions in your leg, a medi-port in your neck, four different drain tubes and, of course, cutting your chest open. So many opportunities for pain! Of course, they give you some really potent pain meds, but those affected my mind so badly that I started refusing them after four days.

          Yet another lesson is that medical professionals ‘practice’ medicine. I have diabetes. It is sort of a family tradition on my mother’s side. Those who have faced it have done well. Those who have tried to ignore it have died. I have done pretty well. I have been on oral medication for years and all has been well. In the hospital, though, the endocrinology people descended on me like buzzards on road kill. I needed to be seriously tweaked. I really didn’t. All of my numbers are acceptable. But endocrinology needed something to do. Among other things, they have put me on insulin. I can live with that if it makes me better. If I can stay away from endocrinology, I might get better.

          On Easter Sunday I was feeling pretty lousy. I was attributing that to the fact that I was not in church that day, preaching then Resurrection. I just felt terrible. Around 1:30 Marsha took me for a little walk outside the house and I went back inside. Next thing I knew I was looking at the ceiling lights in the dining room and the urgent voice of a man trying to rouse me. There was commotion all around me. In a few minutes I was placed on a wheeled stretcher and put into an ambulance. Back to the hospital, where I spent two more days.

          In the hospital they had to give me sugar water via IV for almost 20 hours. I couldn’t retain enough sugar to sustain life. How could such a thing happen to a diabetic? Endocrinology. When the endocrinologist finally came to see me, he admitted to me that they had intended to take me off one of my oral meds when they put me on insulin. The two together nearly killed me.

          But it did lead to another lesson. When I passed out, Marsha called 911. Wabash FD EMTs responded. While everyone else was at home with family on Easter, these guys were out doing their jobs. However, while I was coming out of it a little, I realized that the house was full of people. I began to recognize men in the church. Men who left their family celebrations to get to the parsonage to be with Marsha and to help me anyway they could. All of them had a hand on the stretcher as we went out, all of them had words for Marsha. I will forever be touched by the concern and the outreach. In my entire ministry, I have never experienced that level of caring directed toward me or mine.

          Two last lessons. The first is that something may happen in your life that causes everything to stop for a bit, but the world keeps spinning. Bob and Judy was a ministry couple with whom we served in the same town in Ohio for a number of years. They were in their 50s when Bob went into the ministry and the church Bob pastored was the only church he pastored. Marsha and I were already in town and we all became friends, a friendship that still lasts, although Bob is retired and living in Arizona. Judy told me once that her desire was to be a pastor’s wife like Marsha, but she just didn’t feel she was ever there. Her own worst critic. The day before the surgery, Bob and I talked on the phone. At one point, Judy called out, “Good luck, Larry!” This past Friday, Judy died from pneumonia. The world keeps spinning.

          The final lesson. Real pain requires narcotics. It turns out that narcotics affect me psychologically. I am OK while awake, but once asleep I am in a pure state of terror. Sheer fear. The only thing that helped was Marsha standing by my bed, rubbing my hand or neck, speaking to me to calm me. All night. In a swirling maze of darkness and light, Marsha was there to ease me through. When you are young and getting married, you are doing so for a variety of reasons. You make vows that are pretty much meaningless at the time. You are going to conquer the world! You are as much in love as you can possible be. When you are young and getting married, it never occurs to you that the love you feel will change. It will deepen, it will bend and flex. Instead of a fast moving river, it will become a steady, permanent course of water. When you are young and getting married you don’t think of life in 40 years. You don’t consider that the hand you are placing a ring on might well be the hand whose touch keeps you from insanity. The final lesson? I married the best.

Blessings.