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So I'm settling into my hotel room. I'm out of town, and I'm going to turn on the TV probably to get a little of the local flavor. I especially like to watch the local weather and the local news. That's pretty much what I do at home. Now, if I'm in the U.S. listening to the local news and weather, that's easy. It gets kind of frustrating in another country sometimes.
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It wasn't just another news story. It was loaded with so many layers of tragedy. It was one of the worst I'd ever seen. Maybe you remember several years ago when Japan had a massive earthquake and then a massive tsunami, and then the nuclear emergency. Now, those kinds of things tend to disappear from the front page. But, I'll tell you what, this particular situation, well, it's had lasting effects for a long, long time.
Like the workers at the damaged nuclear power plants. They had to know that something bad was happening to their bodies and their futures as they kept working in that radiating place, but they continued to go in there. They also knew that lives were at stake in their efforts to try to contain the invisible killer that was leaking from those plants. And they heroically risked it all.
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Our sons had always dreamed of playing high school football. When they finally got to realize that dream, they got to play for one of the winningest coaches in our area. He turned what was once a team known for losing into a team that was usually in a championship series. And because I worked with the team for several years as sort of a spiritual coach, I had an opportunity to observe one of the great secrets of his success. He was a genius at knowing what position each player could play best. A lot of times they disagreed with the coach; they saw themselves as being a star at some position they really wanted. But he could size up their capabilities like no coach I'd ever seen. And invariably, the guys who thought he was wrong about the position he gave them, well, they'd end up being all-conference and all-county in that spot.
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It was always pretty exciting traveling with my wife. Well, but my wife with her camera was really exciting, because she could see things that I didn't see. Oh, yeah, I'd have to stop the car for what appeared to be no reason because she'd go, "Stop! Quick!" And, you know, when I'd see the picture, then I'd realize why we had to stop back then.
Oh, sometimes it was a little sign that later told a powerful story, or she'd seen one face in the middle of a hundred faces, or that one face captured on film some very poignant human emotion. Or we all got to see that glorious sunset, or that bird she saw in flight, or some very interesting scene that she saw and I missed.
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Okay, do the math! At one point in time, we had one grandchild. I couldn't believe my wife was old enough to be a grandmother! Can you believe that? Well, you know what? Within a matter of years, that one became nine grandchildren!
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It was a 911 call that alerted the first responders. A man was slowly wading out into San Francisco Bay, inching his way to ending his life there. Pretty soon a group of firefighters, and a crowd of about 75 people, were watching as this desperate man went a little deeper and a little deeper, and sadly occasionally glancing back at the shore. They stood there watching for an hour...and they watched him die, without anyone making a move to help him.
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Over the years, I've learned a few lessons about how to meet a little child for the first time and how not to. I used to stand there all big and adult and come on real enthusiastic, "Hey, how you doing, Billy?" Well, at that point the child promptly turned his head and disappeared somewhere in his mother's leg.
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When it was 7:00 a.m. in the Hutchcraft house, the word "chaos" took on new meaning - a typical school day morning. It was very exciting to get two teenage sons up, get them around, and get them dressed and out to school. Of course, both of them were a little crazy like their Mother, and that contributed to the chaos as well. Finally we were able to get them off to school.
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Our four-year-old grandson loved that Sunday night program the church had for boys his age. He learned lots of Bible verses there, he made friends, and he participated enthusiastically in the special activities they offered. And then they announced that the next week the kids should come dressed as what they wanted to be when they grew up. Our daughter asked our grandson what he wanted to be. He said, "I want to be a grandfather." She shouldn't have told me. I know, that kind of made me melted grandfather all over our carpet. I expect his other grandfather probably felt the same way. They borrowed some of my clothes and they went to work making a grandson into a grandfather. He said, "I even smell like Grandpa!" I'm not sure what that meant. But it did feel good that a grandfather is what he wants to be.
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It started out as a major battle for Jason. It turned out to be a major blessing for someone else. In early March, Jason's symptoms were just a mild cough and congestion. Then the headaches. Then the fever, the body aches, and the shortness of breath. And, you guessed it, by mid-March the test showed he had coronavirus. He isolated himself for ten days to protect his wife and his 11-month-old daughter. Finally, he was able to announce on social media that the medical folks said he had beaten it. It was about that time, there was another COVID patient, though, in his area who was in dire condition and not responding to medications. That's when they contacted Jason to see if he'd be willing to help with an experimental treatment - donating his plasma to be given to the endangered patient. Hoping Jason's antibodies from fighting COVID might help, they gave him those antibodies. They gave him that plasma. Last report - that patient was breathing better each day and starting to recover. Jason looked back on his COVID battle and said: "This thing ended up possibly saving someone's life."
