Break Time

Today I take a little break from any serious consideration of my mental,physical or spiritual state. I am thinking about the lighter part of my heart attack/by-pass debacle.

On the second day after surgery there I am lying in bed, unshaven, no bath in about four days, tubes in places I couldn't even see and I was pooped.

My dear wife Susan had gone to fetch herself something to eat, no nurses to attend to my needs, when I hear a gentle knock on my hospital door. I squeak out the words, "come in" and in walks one of the most beautiful girls in our high school graduation class of 1969. There she stood gorgeous as ever, slender as ever and as kind-hearted as ever. And I cannot, thanks to morphine, recall a word that was spoken between us. All I thought about while she stood there was that I must look terrible. Why couldn't she see me at my best--giving a lecture to 500 people, being a legend in my own mind, funny and full of life? Oh no. I had to be on the bed looking like death warmed over. Even heart-attack survivors have their vanity.

But I'm so glad she came, touched really that she came as did others with such tenderness in their eyes, beauty in their wrinkled but kind faces. I will never remember her words but will always treasure the gift of her presence.

Question: What moment were you seen at your worst and still felt loved?