30th
PARACHUTES
WORD OF MY BREATH
The other day my Mom emailed me the story of a former Vietnam Vet that touched me. This man was a fighter pilot who was shot down over North Vietnam by a Surface to Air Missile. He deployed his parachute, which carried him safely to the ground, but was subsequently captured by the Vietcong, and held in one of their prison camps for 6 years. Since his return and recovery, he has spent his life traveling the country speaking to groups about his struggles in the Communist prison and his life following his military service.
One day, while eating in a restaurant, a man approached him and said, “I know you.” He named the pilot, his Navy ship and the year that he was shot down in Vietnam. The pilot asked, “How do you know that?” The man replied, “I packed your parachute,” and shook his hand. The pilot was stunned and surprised when the man said, “I guess it worked.” The pilot replied, “It sure did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”
The pilot went home that day, but was utterly altered by the chance encounter. He couldn’t stop thinking about the parachute packer, how badly he used to treat the grunts that had his ‘lowly’ job, and how much he thought that his own abilities were what caused his ultimate successes in life. From then on, he changed his speeches, and talked to his audiences to remind them that everyone has parachute packers in their lives, and that we all should be grateful in our hearts and speak up to thank each one of those packers for the daily contributions made, whether it be an encouraging teacher, a helpful store clerk, or an ever patient spouse.
A few weeks ago, on late Friday morning before Easter weekend, I was packing a suitcase to go with my husband to Santa Cruz for a wedding, when I realized that I had a urinary tract infection (UTI). That might seem like no big problem for most people, but in 2005, I had a UTI that morphed so quickly into sepsis (a precarious blood infection), that it almost killed me two times that same year. My physician even gave my husband the, “We’re concerned that your wife might not make it through the night,” talk. When I arrived in the Emergency Room, my fever registered more than 105°, I was experiencing hallucinations, and I still today suffer neurological problems as a result of those two life threatening infections.
Realizing that I needed help on the Friday before a holiday weekend, for an infection that might get out of hand, I thankfully remembered that my Urologist had given me a special phone number to call in case I needed him. I rifled through my desk drawer, found the number with his nurse’s name on it, dialed the phone and silently prayed that they had not already left for the weekend.
On the other end of the line was the sweetest voice. Yolanda was her name and I remembered her from 2005 when I was sick. I told her my plight and she said the strangest thing to me, “You know, I was grumbling to myself about even having to come in this morning because of the holiday weekend, and NOW I know why I needed to come in. It was to take care of YOU.” My heart was comforted at the thought that the God of Heaven was loving me. He knew ahead of time that I would need to have that Urologist’s office open and made a provision for me. When things like that happen to me, I sigh and just feel nurtured on the inside.
Yolanda called me into the back of the office, bypassing the waiting room, tested my microscopic sample, contacted the doctor for me to get the correct instructions, got me straightened away with the correct antibiotics and even buoyed me with words of encouragement for my journey. She was an expert nurse and an angel to boot.
I thought of all the parachute packers in this world, the sometimes nameless, faceless people in our lives, working quietly behind the scenes, like Yolanda, that take care of the details, so that we can jump out of the airplanes in our lives, deploy the canopies of our chutes, safely float downward, and not end up in a heap of rubble because we have no support staff helping us. Then I felt sad for all the times I had neglected to thank those packers, or to at least be thankful for them. God forbid that I ever forget again, for how many times I have landed safely because of them.
Here’s to all the Yolanda’s, who come into the office on the holiday weekends with a great attitude anyway, and all the others in our lives who we forget about, but without whom, let’s face it, we would all crash and burn!
“On the contrary, those parts of the body which have no obvious function are the more essential to health; and to those parts of the body which seem to us to be less deserving of notice we have to allow the highest honor of function. The parts which do not look beautiful have a deeper beauty in the work they do, while the parts which look beautiful may not be at all essential to life! But, God has harmonized the whole body by giving importance of function to the parts which lack apparent importance, that the body should work together as a whole with all the members in sympathetic relationship with one another.” I Corinthians 12:22-25 Phillips
