Guest Post from a Non-Blogger

Hey everyone- Boy, do I have a special treat for you today! You're definitely going to want to read this guest post from my friend, Ricky. Ricky is a smart, funny, talented (and let's not forget cute, right, ladies?) young man that I had the pleasure of going to high school with. Just over a year ago, Ricky and his family went through a horrible ordeal; out of that, he developed a positive insight and grateful outlook on life and wrote this incredible story last Christmas season. Grab your tissues, folks, because you're in for a roller coaster of emotions. Enjoy and remember these fantastic lessons:

This year’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, and holiday season have never meant so much.  After what has been the scariest, most chaotic, and most unbelievable period of time in my family's life, I can say, with immense certainty, that I have never been so overwhelmingly grateful for my family, friends, and everything else in this life.

After all that has happened, I am certain of five things:

1) Life is uncertain, but...

2) Miracles do happen,

3) Angels do exist,

4) Everything happens for a reason,

and even when life seems to be "too much", realize that:

5) Life is certainly wonderful. :)

Okay, storytime.

On Friday, October 29th of this year, my parents flew out to Houston, TX.  The company that my Mom and I work for had asked my Dad to make/deliver/and install a bunch of cabinetry/fixtures for the new surgical center being constructed in The Woodlands, TX (a suburb of Houston).  The cabinetry was all set, and was being driven down in a truck to be delivered on that coming Sunday.  My folks were down there to unload and install the cabinets.

Now, the day they left, I was in Saint Paul…sleeping.  My parents had to drop by our apartment early that morning so my brother could give them a ride to the airport.  My mom actually came inside, woke me up, and said goodbye (hugs and all that good stuff).  Dad didn’t, and at the time, I didn’t care because I was so freaking tired.

Needless to say, I wish I would have.

At the time, I was certain he would be alright…he always is.

But then again…life is uncertain.

Fast forward to Monday morning… Parents were still in Texas. I was getting ready for my 9:55 a.m. class.  On the way to my car, I started thinking about my folks.  I thought about how I hadn’t really spoken to them over the weekend at all.  I thought about how I had not actually spoken to my dad since the previous Thursday.  When I got in my car, the cd I had in the drive began playing.  It was the song “Proud” by good friends of mine, The Icarus Account.  It’s one of very few songs that remind me of my dad. 

As I was driving, I started to think about another thing.  When I was in 4th or 5th grade (1998?), my grandfather (my dad’s dad) had passed away in Texas, somewhere around Dallas.  He went into cardiac arrest at a Home Depot while shopping for rugs for he and his wife’s new home in Dallas.  It was incredibly hard for my family, and to this day, I can barely tell my stories of him.  A picture hangs in my room, right next my desk, of my grandpa, my brother, and I, sitting in a little fishing boat at his old cabin in Hayward, WI.  It’s probably my favorite picture.  It was also one of the last times we saw him, so, I love it. Haha.

Now, upon thinking about this, I thought to myself, “I wonder if it’s weird for my dad to go to Texas? I wonder if he’s okay? What if something happened?” and so on.  So, I decided to call him.  The phone went straight to voicemail. Strange.

So, I called my mom.  She answered almost instantly…

“Ricky,” my mom said.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Where are you?”

“Heading to school, why?”

“Are you on campus or in your car?”

“Car.”

“Ricky, I have to tell you something.”

“What?”

“It’s your dad. He had a heart attack last night”

I turned the car around, and headed home.

Backtrack to late Sunday night… It was Halloween night, and the delivery truck had just arrived at the surgical center.  My mom and dad arrived, and began unloading the truck. They weren’t alone, thankfully; the driver of the truck and a woman who happened to be working late that night were there to help.

At around 11 p.m., while still in the process of unloading some cabinetry, my mom noticed something was wrong.  My dad was sweating. Heavily.  He had been complaining that he was extremely hot, and actually removed his shirt to try and alleviate some of the heat. It didn’t help.  So, being the tough guy my dad is, he decided to go on a little walking cool-off session down one of the building’s hallways by himself.  My mom, being the protector that she is, noticed he had left the area, so she gave him a call.

“Rick, where are you?”

My dad responded somewhere along the lines of, “Honey…I think I’m in a bit of trouble here.”

My mom hung up, sprinted inside, and found my dad standing in the hallway, fairly unresponsive.  She rushed him outside, and they placed my dad in the backseat of a car to cool him off.  911 was called, and paramedics were on the scene within 2 minutes. Crazy fast, thank god.

The last thing my dad remembers is answering a few basic questions for the paramedics.

Suddenly, without warning, he took a gasp of air, eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he fell backwards.  He had gone into cardiac arrest.  The paramedics picked him up and threw him onto the stretcher in the ambulance.  The truck driver and the woman pulled my mom away from the ambulance to a nearby curb.  They prayed and prayed and prayed as the paramedics attempted to bring my dad back to life in the back of an ambulance.

The details of the story, though important, are a bit graphic, so I won’t get into them.  Simply put, throughout the course of the next couple of hours, my dad flatlined five separate times.  My dad died and came back FIVE SEPARATE TIMES.  He was defibrillated five separate times as well, and at least once in front of my mom.  He had a 100% blockage in the artery where a previous stent was placed about five years earlier.  An angioplasty was performed that night, another stent was placed, and the artery was again opened up.  By some strange fortune, one of the best heart surgeons in the Houston area was on call that night, working on my father.  Thank goodness.  He was out of surgery in just over an hour.

It was an absolute miracle.  Had this happened anywhere else, had this happened at home, had the ambulance not arrived in two minutes (the type of heart attack he suffered gives a five minute response window of survival), he would’ve been gone.  Had my mom not traveled with him to Houston (she didn’t have to), he would have been gone.  Had the people who were there late that night not been there, he would have been gone.  Had the right paramedics, nurses, cardiologists, and surgeons not been there, he would have been gone.

He recovered quickly, and they flew back to Minnesota on Wednesday night.  Normally, this type of situation requires a longer recovery period, but he’s a tough dude.  So my dad, my mom, and grandma (she flew down upon hearing the news) headed home.

That night, Rob and I were on our way to pick them up from the airport. It was then that everything hit me. Hard. Rob and I almost lost our dad. I almost didn’t get to say goodbye. Our grandma almost lost her son. Our mom almost lost her best friend. Life, as we know it, was almost flipped completely upside down.  But here, out of fate and fortune, was a second chance for our entire family.

As we pulled up to the brightly lit terminal, we saw him standing there with our mom, our grandma, and our aunt (his sister, there to pick up grandma).  As soon as we were stopped, I opened the door, and headed straight for him. 

I swear to each and every one of you, I have never cried so hard in my life.  I have never hugged somebody so hard in my life.  Never, in my entire life, had I felt such a rush of emotion as I did that night.  Such relief, such happiness, such joy in being able to hold onto someone who was almost ripped away from this world, five states from home, five states from his family.  I can’t even begin to explain the feeling.  It was sad. It was happy. It was absolutely beautiful.

    “Good to see ya, kid,” he said, crying.

    “You too, dad.”

Everyone hugged everyone, and there was this giant family hug. Just tons pf happiness and relief all over the place. We were a family, reunited in near tragedy.  It felt good.

    “Your dad’s always had a knack for getting us together in the strangest ways,” my grandma said.  Everyone laughed. Just so happy.

We said our goodbyes to our grandma and aunt, and hopped in the truck. 

As we pulled away onto the airport roundabout, the radio was turned up quietly.  We sat silently, and I listened.  A certain, special song came on, and I was absolutely certain it was meant to be.  “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie faded in softly, just beginning as we rolled down the highway.  I was the only one who noticed.  For those of you who aren’t aware of the song, it speaks about death and having optimism in losing someone you love.  It’s about a comfort that one day, the people you love are going to die. But, in knowing this, there is comfort, because we will all be reunited again. The opening verse says...

"Love of mine, someday you will die.  But I'll be close behind, and follow you into the dark. No blinding light, or tunnels to gates of white. Just our hands clasped so tight. Waiting for the hint of a spark."

I love this song, and when it came on at that moment, I couldn’t help but tear up.  It was perfect.  I reached up to the front seat, holding my dad’s hand for the first time since I was a little kid.  I never wanted to let it go.

I sit here at my desk, in the after hours of Friday’s workday, stuck waiting for the plows to clear the roads on a snowy December night, writing this story. There are tears on my hands.  There are tears on my keyboard.  This is my favorite story.  This will always be my favorite story.  I will tell this to everyone I know and love until the day I die.  As they say, where there is darkness, there is light.  I have never understood and appreciated this sentiment in a deeper fashion. Real happiness.

Now, back to how this story started.  Those five points.  Here are the lessons everyone can hopefully take away from this.

1) Life is uncertain: those you love can be ripped away at any moment.  Appreciate, talk to, hug, kiss, high five, hold, touch, give, laugh, cry, and tell them you love them at any moment you get.  You never know how many more of those moments you will get :)

2) Miracles do happen: What happened in Texas. Absolute miracle.  Believe in them, because they do happen.

3) Angels do exist: My mom. She’s my dad’s angel.  She flew to Texas to protect him, she was ready to act when she was called upon, and she saved him.  She saved our family. I am forever grateful to her.  Our family is forever grateful to her. That truck driver, that woman, those paramedics, the doctors, nurses, surgeons…everyone who was involved.  You are all angels as well, and we are forever in debt to you for saving my father’s life. Thank you.

4) Everything happens for a reason: I’m not sure if I was ever a complete believer in fate; that everything that happens is for a collective purpose.  I am now.  They were in Texas for a reason, my mom was there for a reason, those doctors were there for a reason. Everything leading up to it... It all happened for a reason. Believe. Believe. Believe. Regardless of faith, believe that there is something out there making everything tick; making the world spin and do its thing.

And even when life seems to be a bit “too much”, realize that:

5) Life is certainly wonderful: It is. It really is.  It’s not always fun, it’s not always happy, it’s not always completely bearable.  But, remember this. In sadness, there is happiness.  In bad, there is good.  Appreciate each second you breathe.  When bad things happen, be thankful that you are even alive and able to feel those horrible feelings.  Everything, in the end, is beautiful.  Life continues to move along even when its members stop short.  Take comfort in being able to enjoy the time you have on this earth, and the time you have with the ones you love.  The fact that we all have one chance makes it fun. You live once. Live fully. Give generously. Laugh frequently. Speak kindly.  It’s easy :)

Amazing, right?! Thank you so much, Ricky for granting me the permission to share this with everyone. It's the perfect thing to read this time of year, because it makes us all that much more grateful for what we have. As I mentioned, Ricky is an incredibly talented guy and he makes amazing music. Please check out their page (and score some free downloads) at purevolume.com- you will not be disappointed. Happy Friday, everyone!