After four years of relatively stable health, using the mantra of moderation in exercise (mostly walking and bicycling), eating, drinking, and scheduling, I found myself in midwinter trying to fit too many things into a few days when a snowstorm hit. My little Chevette slid into a snowbank, and, being such a little car, I thought I could push it out by myself. That didn’t work. A farmer’s tractor did the job. For several days afterward the physical stress increased, until one night I was again in full-blown distress. It was a night of ice, snow, and wind. Our home in Minonk was thirty miles from the nearest hospital, and driving ourselves was out of the question.

Jan called the local ambulance squad. Two friends, Paul and Jim, responded, with oxygen, monitors, and radio, ready to make the trip, usually thirty minutes, this time more than an hour. Jan stayed home with the children. I prayed and meditated, hoping that the wild pounding of my heart, sometimes racing, sometimes taking an alarming break, would become more regular.

By the time we arrived at Streator, I was much quieter and wondering if we should have just stayed home. My blood pressure and pulse were abnormally high, my oxygen level low, my lungs sounded full, and the ER doctor said he heard a loud “click and blow murmur” that could bear some watching, so he reassured me that I had come to the right place. Again, the blood tests, oxygen mask, IV’s, unknown medicines (no penicillin!), standard protocols. The worst part was being away from my wife and family, knowing that the roads would be closed to traffic for the next day or two, but thankful for the telephone to reassure each other.

The next day went slowly but uneventfully, with stats moving steadily in the direction of normal. Toward evening, into the hospital room came Jan, accompanied by Leslie Barth, one of the Minonk gentlemen who always did more than expected. Leslie was a large, good-natured man, a farmer, who had a suitably large, four-wheel-drive pickup truck with a snowblade attached. He had heard of our predicament and volunteered to bring Jan to Streator.

There were several helping hands during that trip and that hospital stay, not least of all Jan’s, but the most memorable touch that moved me came from the large, warm, gentle hands of Leslie Barth, when he took hold of my cold feet, as they stuck out at the end of the light hospital blanket. He held my feet and warmed them, and his warmth filled me, as he told me to get well, take my time, not to worry about work that other people could do while I was recovering, and remember that I was loved, respected, and wanted by him and many others. Thank you, Leslie, for that and more.

Thirty-five years ago, at the age of thirty-three, my symptoms of heart failure were severe enough to send me to the local hospital for a day in the intensive care unit and a couple more days of observation. As a substitute for a vacation or a few days off, I do not recommend the experience. The challenge of it arose, not so much from the repeated punctures and the shaving of my hairy chest for the required tests, nor the problem of trying to rest when one is awakened every hour by a nurse, but mostly from the anxiety and uncertainty about what would become of my wife and two small children if their breadwinner would lose his job and his life. I was then a minister serving a small but growing church. There was plenty to think about at the time.

While I was in the hospital a fellow minister came to call. This was my first and only time to be visited by a minister while I was in a hospital. For three previous surgeries I was mostly unconscious and did not “have” a minister nearby. I had many experiences of visiting people in hospitals by that time, but none of being visited. He was, shall we say, a very traditional pastor. He had a routine that involved a greeting, a reading from the Psalms (He read Psalm 146 to me. I did not know why, and he did not wait for me to ask why he had chosen it. I just wondered afterward if there was some hidden message that he had for me.) When he finished the Psalm, he started to pray—for me, I think—though I did not remember afterward what he prayed, because I was still thinking about the Psalm. Then he said good-bye, and exited the room.

There were a million things I wanted to talk about, but I decided then it would probably not be with him. His routine and the reasons for it were probably honed over his many years of experience, and he may have been trying to be very considerate of my needs for quiet, undisturbed by the emotions or exertions of conversation about my precarious situation. A month later, after I had returned to my daily schedule, I met him in the course of course of our common duties. We talked about nothing in particular, as if nothing had happened.