“But We Have the Best Doctors in the Whole World!”

I’ve been to two funerals in the last month. I didn’t know either of the deceased. Both were family of friends of mine. Regardless, funerals cause you to consider death, and life, and I naturally thought about mine.

I think most people have the same “most important days”—weddings, children’s births, etc. But I want to share some of my most memorable. These aren’t necessarily the most important, just … memorable. And in no particular order. Here’s the first.

In 1985, CNN sent John to Viet Nam to cover the 10^th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.  We’d been married less than tow years, and he was gone six weeks. This was ages ago, when there were no cell phones, no Skype, and international phone calls were outrageously expensive—and I think next to impossible from Viet Nam.  I received messages from him twice in that month and a half. Once at about four weeks, he sent a message that said he loved me and missed me, and a week later he added, “pray for me.”

Not good.

When I went to pick him up at the Atlanta airport, in the international arrivals terminal, those waiting were supposed to stay behind a yellow line. Passengers had to go through customs and baggage claim on a lower floor then came up on an escalator.

It took a while, and I’d been waiting a long time. (And I probably got there a wee bit early. Not that I was eager to meet him or anything.) I kept creeping forward to peek down the escalator. A security guard would bark, “Get behind the line!”

When I finally saw his head slowly rise from behind  the wall, I ran forward. I think the guard yelled, but I ignored her.

He’d lost close to thirty pounds, but I didn’t notice then. I was just so happy to have him home.

I found out later he had contracted amoebic dysentery. They sent him to the hospital, where they tried repeatedly to convince him to let them remove his appendix. They couldn’t understand why he was reluctant to let them cut him open in communist Ho Chi Minh City—“We have the best doctors in the whole world!” Eventually blood tests came back and they diagnosed him properly. “Oops – you don’t have appendicitis. Our bad. Instead of operating, we’ll just give you these incredibly powerful antibiotics.”

A week after he got home his grandmother died. He went to Indiana for the funeral, where his mother sobbed when she saw him. I couldn’t understand why at first. It wasn’t until a few weeks later, when I saw the snapshots (no digital photos then) that I realized how bad he looked. I was fairly shocked (and didn’t feel too stupid).

I guess what they say is true.

Love is truly blind.