A Good Heart

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine suffered sudden heart failure while dining out at a local restaurant. 
It happened just before the peanut butter pie was served.

In what can only be explained as divine intervention, a physician, a navy medic, and a retired cardiac-care nurse were also dining at separate tables in the restaurant.  They came to my friend’s aid.  In their frantic life-saving efforts, a couple of my friend’s ribs were broken.  That was a small price to pay for restoring life to this happy, much-loved, vital woman just a few days short of her 45th birthday.  My friend later learned that the restaurant patrons gathered in a circle to pray as the emergency squad drove her away to a nearby hospital.  Everyone was shaken.  And moved.

It is a powerful thing to watch life leave a person, and it is an equally powerful thing to recognize the awesome power in our hands to restore life, to feel the formidable responsibility for the ongoing existence of another human being, to see our hands as life-giving tools--a spark of the divine in each of us.

In this time of growing hatred in which too many people are preoccupied with sucking the life out of each other, it is inspiring to learn of a situation in which good hearts responded without hesitation to breathe life into a stranger.  It did not matter my friend's political persuasions.  All any one needed to know was that she was in trouble and every second mattered.  It was a heart-to-heart decision.  Humanity and decency prevailed. 

When there is no one to mock us or create doubt in us, our good hearts are stirred to do the right thing because life matters--to us and to each other.

My friend received outstanding cardiac care at the hospital.  Chalk one up for science!  She is now the recipient of an implanted defibrillator that will provide electric current to power her good heart should it ever again go out of rhythm.  I think we could all use a defibrillator to shock us now and then, restore our good hearts when they are out of whack.  Plug us in.  Bring back this transformative power to the people.
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May the beat go on.
 

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