“She\u2019s a good kid, and it\u2019s only for a few months,\u201d my friend said, pleading for me to let her cousin\u2019s daughter from Washington live with me and my husband, Mark, while the girl attended her first semester at Oregon State. Normally I would have said yes, but it hadn\u2019t been long since Mark\u2019s heart attack, and we needed some peace and quiet. \u201cI\u2019ll think about it,\u201d I said, hoping the girl would find other arrangements.<\/p>\n
Mark\u2019s heart attack had been quite an ordeal. I still shuddered every time I thought about receiving the call that my husband had collapsed at the airport on his way back from a business trip. A paramedic had kept his heart beating with CPR for several minutes until a medical team arrived with paddles. I couldn\u2019t imagine life without Mark. I was so grateful to that medic. I only wished I had been in the state of mind to thank him when I briefly met him at the hospital.<\/p>\n
Now that things were finally getting back to normal, would a roomer, even for just a few months, be too disruptive? My friend repeated her request. Her cousin\u2019s daughter was desperate.<\/p>\n
A twinge of guilt nagged at me. \u201cFine,\u201d I said. I made plans to meet with my friend\u2019s cousin, her husband and their daughter. Mark had to work, so he couldn\u2019t make it.<\/p>\n
On a sunny afternoon I greeted the three of them at my front door. We had milk and cookies and chatted about the daughter\u2019s college plans. I began to feel at ease when I noticed there was something familiar about the father. We kept talking and in the back of my mind I was already making plans for the daughter to stay in our spare bedroom. Then I turned to the father. \u201cWhat do you do for a living?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a paramedic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
All at once, I knew. And when I pointed out Mark\u2019s picture to him, so did he.<\/p>\n
At last I could thank him for saving my husband\u2019s life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“She\u2019s a good kid, and it\u2019s only for a few months,\u201d my friend said, pleading for me to let her cousin\u2019s daughter from Washington live with me and my husband, Mark, while the girl attended her first semester at Oregon State. Normally I would have said yes, but it hadn\u2019t been long since Mark\u2019s heart […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[2153],"class_list":["post-15113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gods-grace"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n