Good News and Bad

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Our next door neighbor in Richmond had another heart episode, as a result of which he has had triple bypass surgery. The good part of that is, he will feel much better than he used to, once he recovers.

The very last thing I said to him when I bade him goodbye in September was, “Don’t go having another heart attack on us, now, like you did last time we went to Greece! I don’t want to be hearing anything about you in the hospital.” But as he told me, from his hospital bed, “Looks like I don’t listen to nothin.’”

Please pray for Dickie, for his full recovery.

He and I lived through a scary time together, one afternoon about three years ago…

It started as a strange sound. The cat, in my lap, lifted her head and looked toward the ceiling. So did I. It sounded like a helicopter much too near the house.

Then the house began to shake. Kitty jumped down, I jumped up. I was sure a helicopter had crash-landed on our roof, and the rotary blade, still going around, was smacking the house repeatedly.

Then, as kitty and I both reached the stairs, to go see what the by now deafening racket was, the house moved more, this time from the foundation. I knew no helicopter could do that. I ran outside, and there was Dickie, standing in his front yard.

“Dickie,” I yelled, over the awesome rumbling, “Is this an earthquake?”

“Well, yeah, I reckon!” he shouted back. “Don’t know what else it could be.”

So we stood there together until it was over. His wife, Frances, was inside tending to the daycare children she keeps.

And that’s what it was, too, a little 6.4 quake centered in Powhatan, 20 miles to the west. I don’t think it did any damage to speak of.

(Running outside, we learned later, was the wrong thing to do! In case of an earthquake, you are supposed to stand in the doorway of your house. That way you can run inside or out, depending upon what develops. Meanwhile the frame of the door offers some protection.)

Dickie and Frances are the salt of the earth, God’s own people, who would do anything in the world for you. Dickie even tried, from his hospital bed, to update us on the ongoing construction project converting our deck to a sun room. He had even spoken to the carpenters for us. We told him we would discuss all that much later...

Mena’s news is good. Her swollen, painful foot is simply the result of a fall, and there is no blood clot. She is recovering.

Her husband’s news, though, is bad. A valve in his heart is nearly closed and requires fairly prompt surgery, not as in tomorrow, but as in before the end of the month.

The other bad news concerns a niece of Ianna’s. Ianna mentioned her strange symptoms to Demetrios, who invited her to have her niece telephone him. After he had hung up, he said, dejectedly, “She has multiple sclerosis, almost certainly.”

He didn’t tell her. Neither has her own neurologist. (Demetrios, besides being a psychiatrist, is also a neurologist.) “I told her I agree with him that she should have more tests. But I already know they will confirm it.”

I don't know her name. But all of these people could use your prayers.