I See You
Sometimes there are those events that you really feel you need to be a part of. Then something comes up and makes it impossible for you to attend. Recently my Father had neck surgery. The problem was I had a follow-up doctor’s appointment from my own surgery on that very same day and I could not make it. I was left on the outside being updated by text, emails, and phone calls. That night I called my Mom. She decided she could get more sleep at home and she would head back to the hospital in the morning. She sounded exhausted.
The next day I was up early and on my way to the hospital, though. My Dad was still in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit). I had never been in an ICU before. It was a large circular room with all the patient rooms shooting out like spokes. The nurse’s station was in the middle. You were only allowed to have two people in a room at the same time. When I arrived there was a security guard at the entrance to the ICU. All they gave me at the front desk was the room number, I didn’t know he was still in the ICU. I asked the guard if I was headed in the right direction to the room number. He said yes it was and he pressed the handicap button and both the doors open to the huge room. He pointed for me to go around to the right side because they were having an emergency in one of the rooms to the left. It didn’t hit me at the time, but there were a lot of people gathered around the room that was two doors down from my Dad’s room.
When I got to my Dad’s room he seemed to be doing fine. He seemed more worried about getting a room outside the ICU than any of the effects from the surgery. I was there by myself with him for about an hour until my Mother arrived. I kept hearing a message over the intercom about the room a couple doors down. I would then notice doctors and nurses running past my Dad’s door. This would happen several times throughout the morning. A few moments later another nurse would come by and close the sliding glass door. My Mom would arrive a short time later. We would stay with my Dad until my brother arrived around lunch time. My Mom and I decided to head out to lunch while my brother was there.
My Mom and I were headed out the ICU doors when I noticed a man standing in the middle of the hallway. I recognized the man he was talking to from the crowd that had assembled a couple doors down from my Dad. As we passed them I heard him say to the man, “I’m the Chaplain and I’m very sorry and I was just wondering if there was anything I could do to help?”
When my Mom and I got back to the hospital my brother was in the hallway. He came up to us and said the person a couple of doors down had died while we were gone. As I went back in to see my Dad I noticed only a few people left in the room. Most had tears in their eyes. As I sat there with my Dad I couldn’t help but look over there every once in a while. At one point I noticed a few people left in the room. There was a large, trash can like, container beside the doorway of the room two doors down, where the doctors and nurses dispensed their used gloves and other “hazardous” materials. As tear filled people were in still in the room, I noticed a nurse assistant with a plastic bag. She emptied the trash can like container and headed to her next task. Even as people shed tears as they passed the bed one last time to view the body, it was just another day in the ICU for the nurse.
After I left, my sister and niece came by to visit with my Dad. They said while they were there the rolling bed was moved out of the room two doors down. They said that on top of the bed was a container, much like a large food serving container. My niece, who is attending nursing school, said that was how they removed the body from the room so that it will not upset the other patients in the ICU.
The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution states:
Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
Section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission to the states by the Congress.
On February 27, 1951, Minnesota became the thirty-sixth state to ratify that Amendment and it became the law of the land. President Dwight Eisenhower became the first President to feel the effects of this new Amendment. Because of this Amendment he was unable to run for a third term. The election of 1960 would be the first Presidential election under this new Amendment. Alaska and Hawaii, which became states in 1959, are the only states to have always lived under this Amendment.
This was one of those nail biting, close elections. The Democrats held their convention in Los Angeles, California. Senator John Kennedy of Massachusetts would be their nominee. The Republicans would nominate Vice President Richard Nixon of California at their convention in Chicago.
It would be a great honor to have your name in the Bible. It would probably be even greater if your story was one of those told in the Bible. This is one of those stories and I’m wondering if you have ever heard of the couple. The first person listed is named the Woman of Shuneum and the second was her famous companion who went by the name of Husband. That’s all there is to their names. Can you imagine getting your story in the Bible and it begins: The woman of Shuneum and her husband?
Well, this was a really nice couple. It seems like they built a little room on to their house for the prophet Elisha. They told Elisha, any time he was in town, he could come and go as he pleased and the room would always be available for him. Elisha told the Woman of Shuneum that by the time he came back the next year she would have a son. He wouldn’t be a very good prophet if it didn’t happen. The next year, when he came, there was that little bundle of joy.
One day Husband was out in the field working when the son complained of a severe headache. Husband did what all good dads do, he sent the son into the Mom. The Mom laid the boy’s head in her lap. The boy died. The upset Woman of Shuneum called out to Husband and told him to get one of the servants so they could track down Elisha. When she finds Elisha, she yells at him, “Why did you give me a son if you were only going to take him away a few years later?” Elisha went back to the house with her and went upstairs where the boy was lying. He would raise the boy from the dead.
The 1960 Republican Convention in Chicago would have a special guest speaker. His name was attached to many bad economic things, but he had redeemed himself. Where he once was shunned, he was now welcomed. Besides, he was very old. He was just weeks away from turning eighty-six years old. Everyone thought, probably including himself, he wouldn’t live to see another one, so it was hailed as the “farewell” ceremonies. Joking with the delegates he would say, “Apparently, my last three good-byes didn’t take.” Herbert Hoover would live, but would not be able to attend the 1964 Republican Convention. He would have major health problems and would die a few months after that 1964 Convention took place.
Life is precious indeed. Death causes us much sorrow. No matter how loud Death knocks on the door, when Death is standing there, we are always surprised by his presence. We never know when that dark stranger will be at the door. Tears fall and memories fill our soul when those special to us grab his hand and leave our lives. That is why today is so important.
Prayer: Dear Mighty Father, Thank you for today. Help me, no matter how bad things get, to realize that each day is a gift. Please let me use it wisely. Amen!
