Reading Room - Daily life in print
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"His Son"

The day is over, you are driving home.  You tune in your radio and hear a blurb 
about a town in India where some residents have died suddenly, strangely, of an 
illness that has never been seen before.  It is not quite like influenza, but seven 
people are dead and the United States is sending specialists there to investigate.  
You listen and find it mildly interesting.

A couple of days later, coming home from church, you hear on the radio that it is 
not just seven people, but 73 living in the hills east of Bangalore, India.  On TV 
that night, the total has risen to almost 1700 people.  It is spreading fast.

By Monday morning when you get up, it is the lead story.  Now it is not just India; 
it is also in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and by supper time, three more countries 
in the Middle East report it..  They have begun calling it the Bangalore Flu.  The 
President of the United States has made some comments that he and his staff are 
praying for these countries and their leaders.  But what everyone is really 
wondering is, how are we going to contain it?

That is when the President of France makes an announcement that shocks Europe.  
He is closing France's borders.  No flights into France from India or any of the 
adjoining countries where this illness has been reported.  That night in bed, while 
you are watching CNN, your jaw hits your chest.  A woman is weeping and the 
news is translated from Arabic into English; the man she is with in a hospital is 
dying of the Bangalore Flu. It has arrived in Europe.

Panic strikes.  The Center for Disease Control discovers that once you're exposed 
you have about a week before you show signs.  Then you are stricken with terrible, 
painful symptoms unlike anything mankind has experienced for centuries.  After 
three to five days of muscle spasms,  high fever and internal bleeding, you lapse 
into a coma-like state.  Finally, mercifully, you die.

Meanwhile, Great Britain has closed its borders, but its too late.  Tuesday morning, 
the President of the United States makes an announcement:  "Due to a national 
security risk, all travel to and from Europe and Asia is cancelled.  No one will be 
allowed to travel from Europe or Great Britain until this disease is contained.  We 
must protect the healthy."

Within four days, the nation has been plunged into fear and distrust.  People are 
talking.  What will they do if the disease comes to this country?   Some preachers 
are calling it the scourge of God.  

At Wednesday night Bible study, someone runs in the parking lot and says "Turn 
on the radio!  Turn on the radio!"   And while the church gathers around a small
radio to listen, an announcement is made.  Two women are lying in hospitals on
the east coast, dying of the Bangalore Flu.  Within hours it seems, this thing just 
swept around the planet.  People are working around the clock trying to find a 
vaccine.  Nothing is working.  It is as though it's just sweeping in on the air. 

Thursday, the news come out.  A cure has been found.  A vaccine can be made.
It is going to take the blood of somebody who hasn't been infected, though.  The
call goes out all through the Midwest, through the Emergency Broadcast System,
asking everyone to do one simple thing:  Go to your nearest hospital and have 
your blood taken for testing.  That's all they are asking.  

You gather your family and drive them to the local hospital.  All your friends, 
neighbors, the people you work with, people you worship with are there, everyone 
looks nervous.  Someone is taking blood sample from the women, someone else is 
taking blood from the men, a third person is taking blood from the children, and a 
fourth person is taking blood from the elderly.  It is all very organized and quiet. 
Afterward, you join everyone in the parking lot to wait for results.  Everyone seems 
nervous.  Will they find the right blood here?  Or will everyone be sent home and 
the technicians move on to the next medical site?   Can this be it?  Will this be the 
end of us all?  Of mankind?

Suddenly a young man comes running out of the hospital.  He is yelling a name
and waving a clipboard.  What did he say?  He yells again and your young son 
tugs on your jacket, saying "Daddy, that's me."  Before you know it, they have 
grabbed your boy.  "Wait a minute.  Hold on!"  And they say, "It's okay.  His 
blood is clean.  His blood is pure.  There is no disease in his blood, we want to 
make sure it is the right type."   Five tense minutes late, out come the doctors and
nurses crying and hugging one another.  Some are even laughing.  It is the first 
time you have seen anybody laugh in a week and an old doctor walks up to you 
and says, "Thank you sir.  Your son's blood type is perfect.  It's clean, it's pure 
and we can make the vaccine."  

As the word begins to spread all across the parking lot full of folks, people are 
screaming and praying, laughing and crying.  But then the doctor pulls you and
your wife aside and says, "May we see you for a moment?  We didn't realize 
that the donor would be a minor and we need... we need you to sign a consent 
form."

You begin to sign and then you see that the number of pints of blood to be taken 
is empty.  "Uh, how many pints do you need?  Exactly?" you say to the doctor.  
That is when he looks away and says softly, "We had no idea the donor would be 
a little child.  We need it all."   "But-but..... I do not understand.  He is my only
son!"  "We are talking about the world here.  Please sign.  We.... we need it all!"
"But can't you give him a transfusion?  "If we had clean blood we would.  Please,
will you sign?"  In numb silence you do.  Then they say, "Would you like to have
a moment with him before we begin?"

Could you walk back?  Could you walk back to that room where he sits on a 
table saying, "Daddy?  Mommy?  What's going on?"  Could you take his hand
and say, "Son, your mommy and I love you and we would never let anything 
happen to you that didn't just have to be.  Do you understand that?"

And when that old doctor comes back in and says, "I'm sorry, we've got to get 
started.  People all over the world are dying."  Could you leave?  Could you walk 
out while he saying, "Mom?  Dad?  Why have you forgotten me?"  And the next 
week, when they have the ceremony to honor your son, and some people sleep 
through it, and some others don't even bother to come because they have better 
things to do, and some people come with a pretentious smile and pretend to care.

Would you want to jump up and say,  "EXCUSE ME!  MY SON DIED FOR 
YOU!  DON'T YOU EVEN CARE?  DOES IT MEAN NOTHING?  DON'T 
YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I CARE?  

Father, seeing it from your eyes should break our hearts.  Maybe now we can 
begin to comprehend the great love you have for us.

That is the Gospel in a nutshell. 

Author unknown.  Received as an e-mail and edited by Jennifer Nordberg.

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