THE MEETING

We can conditionally divide the endless stream of things to do into two types: urgent and important. Unfortunately, urgent matters very often overshadow the important ones, such as caring about and spending time with your family and kids. It is this responsibility that often takes one of the last places in the everyday kaleidoscope of urgent matters. That’s why Scripture strongly condemns parents if they don’t pay enough attention to their family. “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

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In the early 1990s the immigrant community of Sacramento was struck by a tragic event. It happened in one of the ministers’ family, who came to California among the first immigrants in the third wave. This true story can serve as a reminder of well-known truths that we sometimes forget.

Portland, the only truly large city in Oregon, is located six hundred miles north of Sacramento, which is approximately a ten hour drive at a fairly fast pace down the highway. One late night in the fall, two young men, one of whom was the son of this minister, were going back from Portland to Sacramento, and at about four in the morning, this irreparable tragedy happened. The driver fell asleep and their car, moving at a high rate of speed, ran into and went under the trailer of a semi that had stopped on the side of the road. The driver was killed instantly. And the minister’s son, sleeping in the back seat at the time of the crash, was seriously injured and taken to the hospital in Redding by helicopter. This is the closest Californian city on the way from Oregon, about 180 miles away from Sacramento. It was dangerous to transport him further. For about thirty days he was in coma, balancing between life and death. Nobody knew whether he was going to survive after such serious injuries.

 A couple of months after the incident, my son-in-law Vasiliy and I, after our work day had ended, went grocery shopping to one of the local supermarkets and met the father of the poor guy. His face was sad and looked somewhat perplexed. Having inquired about his son and his treatment, we did our best, trying to cheer up and console him. Sighing and silently nodding his head, he listened to our wishes of health and then suddenly said:

-        Brothers, do you want to hear what’s been going on in my soul after this accident?

Even though we knew the man and his family quite well, this offer, frankly, took us by surprise. I don’t know what made him open his soul to us that evening. It might have been our sympathetic questions about his son’s well-being, or, perhaps, the unspoken pain, all that time accumulating in his soul, and which he decided to confide in us at the seemingly most inappropriate place. We took our shopping carts away from the checkouts, and he started telling his story, touching to the point it sounded confessional.

“You know, brothers, this story made me look at life through different eyes. I used to never have time for anything. My life was an endless stream of urgent matters. I had a lot of responsibilities in church, Sunday services, weekly services, brotherly councils, conversations, visits, discussing the Lord’s word and a lot more “church-related routine”, as I would say, that never ended. Apart from that, I had plenty of other things to do, and there was always something urgent, one thing after another, day after day, like a squirrel in a wheel.

When my son was younger, he would often pester me with questions, ask me to do something with him, or to go somewhere, but I would just brush him off and go away to solve someone else’s problems. Over time, he approached me less and less, and then he didn’t need me anymore. He had new friends, that he would rather spend time with than spend time at home, gradually going down the wrong path. He became secretive, evasive and disengaged. From time to time I tried to talk to him, but my instructions were given, as they say, on the run, between my constant urgent matters. In fact, I understood that I should have spent more time with my family, the kids, but there was no way I could break this circle of endless community affairs, so I kept paying little crumbs of attention to my family. That’s how we lived.

When we found out about this misfortune, we immediately went to Redding. The first operation lasted about seven hours, a day later they did the second one, and then one more. After the third operation, doctors said they had done everything they could, and the rest was in God’s hands.

He was put in the intensive care unit, in a special room, separated from the world with a hermetically sealed glass wall. He was lying on a tall bed with casters and rails made of nickel-plated pipes, a cross between an examination table and a hospital couch. He was unrecognizably pale and haggard. Areas on his arms, legs and face, where operations had been done, were covered with bandages. A lot of tubes and wires were coming out of and attached to his body as well as were several IV drips . The entire wall behind the headboard was covered with various medical devices going nearly up to the ceiling. Some lights came on, something occasionally turned on and off. An oscilloscope screen was glowing in the back of the room, showing the broken waves of his heartbeat.

I was sitting behind the glass that separated me from my son, watching him and praying. What happened to all my urgent matters, all the worries tearing me apart? They all became distant, small and insignificant. My son was lying behind glass in a hospital room. I looked at him and remembered how he was born, his childhood, his laugh, his messes and mischievous deeds … Looking at that room, I clearly saw how day by day I had been losing him, how step by step the devil had been taking possession of his heart, that had so much good and kindness in it, and how I couldn’t find time to help my son…

Again and again, I buried my face in my hands and burst into tears. I realized that it was too late. I didn’t appreciate the priceless days of peace and happiness, when all of my family, healthy and jolly, were only waiting for dad, ready to make me happy just by their existence in the world, with their love. I lived not noticing my happiness, always in a hurry, on the run, I had to do something, save someone, help someone, but I didn’t have enough time to take care of my son…

I couldn’t enter that room. With a sinking heart, I looked at the moving lines of the oscilloscope, not knowing if his heart would make another beat or stop forever the next moment. Every minute seemed like an eternity…

He didn’t hear me, but I was sitting on the other side of the glass, watching and talking to him. I told him everything I should have said before, when he was well. I told him how much I loved him, how dear he was to us, how his sisters and brothers loved him and waited for him, how they were crying and praying for him, how they missed him… I told him how God and church loved him, how many people were praying for him at that moment… I was praying and asking God for forgiveness, I was asking my son for forgiveness, looking at the screen of the oscilloscope as if it was an icon and begging for the lines not to stop moving… It seemed to me that my heart had broken, tears kept flowing, but I didn’t notice, nothing else in the world interested me anymore… I was looking at my son and wanted to run my hand through his hair, and I didn’t understand why I hadn’t done it for many years, because I love my son and it could have been done so easily when he was home…

And the Lord had mercy on him, as well as He had mercy on me. If my son hadn’t survived, I would have never forgiven myself. Only there I completely understood how dear he was to us..”

After a short pause, he added: “Cherish your family, brothers, cherish your kids, cherish your happiness. This is what is truly important.” He averted his eyes, wet with tears, shook our hands, said goodbye and headed for the exit.

Impressed by the story and unable to find words, Vasiliy and I kept walking in silence, and having bought our groceries, went out to the parking lot, illuminated by neon light. The sun had already disappeared behind the horizon, and warm twilight had fallen on Sacramento, setting free restless flies, that surrounded the street lamps, rejoicing in the good weather. Similar to each other in the dark, сars were moving along Jefferson Avenue, flashing their yellow-eyed headlights. Tired of the whirlwind of everyday life, the city was slowing down its frantic pace, anticipating the close night’s rest. Distracted, I couldn’t keep a meaningful conversation going. Immersed in our thoughts, we exchanged a couple of phrases and each went to his car.

This story shocked me with the truth of life, that we frequently don’t pay attention to. Burdened with worries, we don’t notice how day by day our children are growing up, how unique and sweet they are. Annoyed by the difficulties in our daily lives, we dream about the day when our children will grow up. We spend this beautiful period of life busy and anticipating that soon we will live happily. We say that we only need to raise our kids, save a little more money, get on our feet, buy a house or a car, have our summer house built, etc And the ghost of happiness is looming ahead of us for years, like an Asian mirage, until finally, we understand that we needed very little to be happy, because our happiness had long been waiting for us at home. We understand how many things in life passed us by, simple, good, kind and important things that we didn’t notice.

God willing, we’ll all cherish this precious time, cherish every new day, cherish the ones we live with and whom the Providence of God gave us for the time of our earthly life. God willing, we’ll live our short days carefully and wisely, remembering that nothing will last forever.