03/22/2026
Life, Death, and Resurrection...
The last thing I remembered was having lunch with some friends, biting into a sandwich and enjoying the moment. Then, as I opened my eyes, everyone was standing around me asking, “Are you Ok?” Puzzled by the sudden change in scenery, I replied: “Yes, what happened?” The person standing next to me said, “You bent down to pick up your napkin and didn’t come up for a long time!” A lady with her eyes wide open and her hand over her mouth blurted out, “You need to go to the hospital, we thought you were dead!” Feeling a little concerned, I obliged and was taken to the local ER, where I was quickly admitted.
“We’ll keep you in observation overnight and see if we can figure out what happened.” A nurse said as she began sticking heart monitor electrodes on my chest. “We don’t have any rooms available right now, so you will have to wait in the hall until one is ready.” A few minutes later, I was wheeled down the hall and parked next to a nursing station.
A few hours go by, and just as I begin to settle in for what I thought would be a boring wait to get any results, I see a small entourage coming towards me with an older woman strapped into a gurney fresh out of an ambulance. She is complaining about being abused as they park her in the alcove assessment area across the hall from me. “I have rights, you know! You can’t just kidnap me and keep me here against my will!” She accuses them with a drunken slur.
The attending nurse politely reminds her that she is in the hospital because she has been a threat to herself and others -again, and the nurse wanted to make sure that she was ok. In the ensuing conversation, it turned out that Lily is a regular acquaintance of the hospital staff here and the nurse asked if she was still taking her meds. After she received some, the once defiant older voice began sounding more like a little girl. “I’ll be good!” “It was all just a big misunderstanding.” “Can I go home now?” She said as they moved her somewhere to sleep for a while. As she left, we shared a pleasant glance, and then I prayed for her and the many people like her who struggle with addictions and medications that make life so difficult for them and those around them.
Later on, just as I thought that I would finally get some rest, a much larger entourage came barreling down the hall, ushering a younger man in his thirties, who was yelling obscenities at the six policemen, two paramedics and hospital security detail that had brought him in. The handcuffs that bound his wrists and ankles to the gurney rattling like the sound of a wild beast chained in a cage. Such extreme, hateful profanity was coming out of his mouth that I thought that this man must be possessed!
They wheeled him into another alcove across from me. The policemen standing shoulder to shoulder, creating a protective barrier between me and the most angry and potentially dangerous man I have ever met. A couple of nurses donned full hazmat gear and squeezed in through the thin blue line to approach the man who was now spitting and trying to attack everyone in sight. The sergeant calmly asked if anyone had a spit mask. One of the officers quipped, “I got one in the car!” He quickly returned, and they put it on the man, who groaned and said, “Not this again.”
From the conversations that followed, it was revealed that Mark was also well known to first responders as a repeat customer. It seems both he and his brother came from such a horrendous background that they are regularly apprehended, treated with medication and returned to the streets from whence they came. It seemed like a cynical cycle that keeps everyone busy with nothing ever getting done.
Once they drugged him until he was unconscious, the police left as hospital staff wheeled him off to a more secure location. As his still body silently passed me by, I paused and prayed, saying, there but for the grace of God go I. Accepting that this is how I might have turned out if nobody ever cared or prayed for me. Please say a prayer for Mark and people like him. They certainly could use it.
Shortly after that, a nurse appears and tells me that the tests have revealed that my heart is no longer able to maintain a continuous rhythm. Hearing that I have an irregular heartbeat is something that I have heard since my teens, but now it was starting to have much longer on-off cycles. They then moved me to the intensive care unit while I awaited to receive a pacemaker.
There, I enjoyed the quiet of my own private room and soon drifted off into a peaceful sleep after thanking the nurse who brought me there. Then the next thing I hear is angelic voices calling out to me, “John, John, are you ok?” “Are you still with us, John?” As I open my eyes, my bed is surrounded by nurses and machines. One was attaching large electrode stick-on pads, while another was placing a defibrillator at the foot of my bed. “Do you know where you are?” “I have no idea!” I responded until I saw the nurse whom I had just seen before falling asleep. “I know you!” I said with a smile as the others began to say, “He’s ok now.” A few moments later, everyone had left except the attending nurse.
When I asked her what happened, she said that my heart had stopped, again. It was the fifth time in three days. This time was one of the longest, and they were about to zap me when my heart just started again on its own. Thank God!
The next day, I had to wait until late in the afternoon for the procedure, which gave me lots of time to think about life, death, and resurrection. How fortunate I was to have been with friends and only a few kilometers away from one of the premier heart institutes in Ontario.
How this might have happened while I was travelling in Europe, as I had originally planned to be! How I was already booked off and able to stay at a retreat centre for the next six weeks before returning to active ministry. Like it was all carefully planned in advance. Like Lazarus, who once lived, died, and lived again, all I can say is thanks and praise be to God. Not only have I been blessed by being surrounded by such loving and caring people, but I also have been given the opportunity to meet and pray for two people who are most certainly in need of prayers. Let us continue to pray for one another and for those who need them.
Thank you for your prayers,
Fr. John
