Prayers for Dan

That's me and my big brother. My big brother Dan. My protector. My reading pal. The one who showed me how easy it was to walk. The one who engaged me in all my early talk. Yup. He'd be the one to teach me to walk & talk. That's the job of the first born. I share this picture with school children during my author visits by saying, "I'm so old.... they hadn't invented color when I was a child." It's true. All of my childhood pictures are in black and white. It was up to the two of us to color in our world together. Marco. Polo. Marco. Polo.

My big brother Dan is in the ICU today. We learned this chapter of his story very late into it's unfolding. It turns out that a week ago while I was watching sailboats and daisies he was apparently cooking in his kitchen and somehow something caught on fire. At least that's the theory of the fire Marshall. Dan was rescued, unconscious, buried below some sort of book-case that may have in essence saved him from the raging flames. At least that's what we've been told.


He owes his life to the neighborhood, real-life, Lassie doggy who barked like crazy, alerting some good person who then placed the 911 call that saved his life. He was taken to the hospital where they induced a coma for his healing to begin. It wasn't until the end of the week that his cell phone was located in the debris & the good Samaritan was able to locate us -- his family.

When I was able to reach his ICU nurse yesterday morning, I was told of their plan to gradually bring him from his 'coma' state to encourage his independent breathing.... the smoke inhalation damage being his biggest threat. Later in the afternoon when they called back, Dan was already responsive to their requests -- starting first with blinking eyes on command and later moving his arm when asked. The second call confirmed that the various tubes down his throat had been removed and Dan was breathing primarily on his own, with oxygen available. The nurse was able to convey that all of us, his family were now cheering for his progress and in constant prayer for his progress.

Imagine my shock when at the end of the day my cell phone rang again and it was Dan's nurse calling to tell me that Dan wanted to talk to me!!! Shae explained that it would be difficult to understand Dan, but that he had insisted on calling.

Then in a heartbeat I heard an other-worldly, ghost-like whisper said what I gather was 'hello' and then went on in rasp-like 'words' though strain as I hard as I could there were few utterances that I could grasp. The two word phrase I heard in each sentence was, "thank you." Over and over and over, Dan said thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

What lies ahead? A long road. Challenges. Difficulties. Heart ache. Change. No doubt. But the punctuating phrase to begin the rest of his life is "thank you."

Now that I know how to read my blogging analytics I have learned that as I type someone in Egypt is here treading. This morning there was a contingent from Australia and France, some one lone person read here in Iran in the last 24 hours. Several in India and more than I would have ever suspected were reading here from Russia. The Philippines were represented and the Arab Republic, too! That's not counting the local yocals here in the states and Canada. It would be my fondest wish that if you have somehow stumbled onto my little blogging efforts and are reading this now, that you would add prayers from your faith tradition for his journey ahead. I know that would give much strength to my family, to my parents, to my sibblings and to my brother Dan and to me.

This picture is of the four of us together for the occasion of my father's 80th birthday, now already a couple of years ago. I think it's somehow 'easier' to pray for a person when I have a picture in mind. Thanks from the bottom of my heart. The next time I talk to Dan I'll tell him of the international cheering section. Dan's the one in the fancy fedora.

I will never hear the barking of a dog from my previous prism. Instead? I will think back to those days of watching Lassie episodes together with my big brother watching our black and white TV. I will then think of the ghost who said "thank you" and then I will smile with gratitude.