Captain America

[Today I joyfully held a healthy, 2-month-old son born to the family in this story. Of course, it also took me back to remembering Joshua and this piece I wrote last year…]

The pastor called me from the local hospital where he and his wife, with their newborn son, were visiting a church member dying of cancer.

“Joshua stopped breathing. He choked on his bottle. They’re going to airlift him to the Children’s hospital. I’ll stay with him until the helicopter arrives. Could you drive Camilla to Gainesville to meet him at the other end?”

The sun was setting as we sped north for the better part of an hour.

This young family had moved to our community only a few months earlier. They were having to depend on brand new friends like me during a life-and-death situation. It was new for all of us.

Because it took awhile for Joshua’s vitals to stabilize before the flight, we arrived first at the emergency ward.

They eventually ushered Camilla and me into the 10×20-foot cinder-block room whose spaciousness made a tiny infant on a full-size hospital bed look even smaller. For the next few hours they watched and checked and monitored.

He appeared stable enough that they were discussing whether to observe him overnight or send us home. While they deliberated elsewhere, I mentioned that it had now been more than five hours since his last feeding. They said Camilla could give him a bottle while they checked on room availability.

His low muscle tone and reflux required a more upright feeding position. I sat on the bed and held him facing his mama so that she could give the bottle and watch him carefully.

“Oh no. It’s happening again.” She disappeared into the hallway for help.

Joshua was turning blue in my arms.

Nothing in a teaching hospital happens without a crowd. Suddenly the room was swarming with a dozen paramedics, nurses, technicians, and doctors of various degrees and all their equipment.

I placed Joshua’s small frame on the bed and plastered myself against the wall, not wanting to be in the way and hoping I could be inconspicuous enough to stay. Everything in me wanted to remain in this room to pray.

A woman in a hijab from the clergy and counseling department appeared, asking Camilla if she would like to go outside and talk.

“I’ll stay with my son,” she replied.

Camilla took a spot at the foot of the bed beyond the knot of activity but in full view of the monitors and her son. The Muslim clergywoman stuck beside her.

I stayed against my wall and began to pray and sing at a barely audible level.

A piece of a song was all I could remember, but it was appropriate. So I kept coming back to it: “It’s Your breath in our lungs. So we pour out our praise to You only.”

I could hear Camilla praying out loud across the room in her native Portuguese.

She and I would implore heaven and cover the spiritual atmosphere while the medical staff employed all their skill to keep this baby breathing.

“It’s Your breath in our lungs.”

The first three attempts at inserting a breathing tube failed. Almost an hour had gone by. The voice of the attending physician began to crack, along with her composure. Physicians are people too, and this baby was dying on her watch.

“It’s Your breath in our lungs. So we pour out our praise.”

I kept singing softly. Only heaven could hear me in the commotion.

The fourth attempt failed.

The stress level in the room became palpable. I prayed for the attending. She had a job to lead and couldn’t afford to lose her wits to emotion now.

About that time—I don’t know how better to describe it—a presence entered the room, wearing a flight suit.

This red-bearded member of the helicopter crew set down his backpack with a Captain America shield on it and took his place at the head of the hospital bed.

I will never forget the collective sigh of relief emitted around the room. He was clearly a seasoned warrior, and he was here.

It wasn’t his skills that changed the atmosphere—his attempt also failed. Yet another doctor appeared, this one with a video scope. The live feed of a camera on the inside made the sixth attempt successful.

His skills hadn’t changed things, but his presence had. An entire team pulled it together, took a deep breath, and kept going with new resolve because he had showed up.

I decided on the spot that that power of presence was a new goal in life. Lord, I will use every skill I have for Your kingdom. But skills or not, make my presence a transformational force, even if I’m just a friend singing softly along the wall.

The crowd began to break up as the successful tube stabilized Joshua.

I leaned against my wall, as weary as everyone else. Running on an automatic loop in my head now, the song lyrics that had peppered my other prayers during this most intense hour and half still repeated:

“So we pour out our praise to You only.”

Captain America finished talking to a nurse and slung his backpack over his shoulder.

In a God-inspired gesture that let me know heaven saw the one along the wall, he winked at me from across the room and left.

Joshua’s heart never stopped beating during that ordeal. In fact, he would live for several more months. Then he would enter heaven, but not before he had taught me the importance of resolve to stay in the game and give it all we have, whatever we have, in skills and presence, till the end.