"Do what you have to do..."

“A friend is, as it were, a second self.”

- Marcus Cicero: On Friendship

The intensive care unit is not a place anyone really wants to be, either as a patient or visitor…and yet there we were – Vancouver General Hospital.  When I arrived, we went directly to see him.

The small figure lying in bed belied his ‘bigger than life’ personality.  He was attached to wires measuring the status of his heart, a trachea tube helping him breathe, and an arterial line dialyzing his kidneys to keep him from retaining too much water…a bionic man – not with super powers…just trying to keep him alive.

How this started…

A few months before, on the cusp of taking an overseas trip, he had the stroke, and suddenly, the total focus of his life changed.  Significant illness or unanticipated life threatening events, simplify life pretty quickly…and so his life got pretty simple, pretty quickly.  The focus? Get better!  And so he did until a little more than two weeks ago, when while sweeping the floor at home he went into cardiac arrest.

Only the quick thinking of his youngest son Jin doing cardiac compressions and Jin’s wife Alana making the emergency call, kept him alive long enough for firemen and the ambulance medics to get him to the hospital cardiac unit.

Sally, his wife, was heading home from China…

The Call…

Chung Hao, the eldest son had been updating me; we had just spoken on the weekend.  I wondered out loud whether I should come up to see him, but it seemed he was coming along...maybe I would wait until he had recovered and we could have some quiet quality time.

“Do you want the good news first or the bad news?”  Chung said Tuesday.  I hesitated long enough for him to say, “Let me give you the good news.”  In truth, I didn’t want either because I knew by the tone and the question; even good news would be littered with uncertainty.  Chung said, his father had been doing pretty well and seemed to be responding better every day.  The bad news?  He had crashed late in the weekend and had to be moved from the cardiac unit to the ICU. 

I made the flight reservation for Thursday morning.  Sally was right when she later said, “You wanted to see with your own eyes…”

Who is this man?

WingLee Cheong, or more properly in the Chinese tradition of name order Cheong WingLee and I met when he was running a company that made exercise technology I used in the treatment of chronic back and neck pain.  We started off, not so much adversaries, but rather with a little tension. 

A small group of us had raised some venture capital money for a back pain injury prevention company, and invited WingLee to meet with us.  We would be using equipment from his company, so it seemed like a good idea to get to know him.  After the initial meeting we had dinner at a partner’s home, where Wing suggested our business plan was not so good…a strange thing for a man who would benefit from our business to say.  In time, I would learn that frankness was simply part of who Wing was.  You would seldom be unclear as to what he was thinking.

A few weeks later we found ourselves at a conference together and spent some time chatting – not about business, but about life…our lives and families.  Somehow, from that conversation we connected and developed a relationship…a friendship that for me became as meaningful as any I have ever had.

In the early years of knowing Wing, I was part of a spiritual community in Missouri.  He decided he wanted to visit this place and see who these people were.  That visit became the first of many as he became an adopted member of my personal and church family. 

Welcome to the world…

In addition he brought me into his family, and opened doors to the most exotic of life experiences.  We traveled to Taiwan, to China, to Singapore more than once…to cultures and peoples I had only touched in my imaginations.  He taught me to eat fish head, bean curd, chicken/duck feet, Congee, 100-year-old egg, pigeon, Durian, and so many other foods I had never heard of.  He seemed to love to share the rich heritage of Asian Culture with his ‘Guailo’ (qwhy-low: meaning Caucasian) friend.  He would say, “See, Westerner’s think people in China are not happy because many are poor.  Do these people look unhappy?”

He had two bases of operation the years we traveled in Asia: His home and family in Vancouver, and a little later, an efficient condo in Guangzhou China.  “Cannot” and “won’t” had little place in his vocabulary, and he is the single most optimistic human being I have ever met!  Lemonade from lemons??  When lemons came his way, his lemonade was the best!

Short visits on a short trip…

He was sedated on the first visit, and after an hour or so, we headed to Jin’s home where I rested before going to dinner with the family.  The family – Sally, the matriarch…Chung and Jin the sons…Lynn the daughter…Alana, Jin’s wife.  There are not words to express how amazing and giving these people are.  Different cultures…different races, and yet…and yet we are really not very different at all.

After eating, it was back to the hospital where Wing was a little more responsive, and it seemed he recognized me.  The next day I saw saw him twice…in the morning and later in the evening.  Only two family members could visit at a time, so we tag-teamed in and out…Lynn and I took the first visit.

A time to pray…

We had been with him for a while; Lynn looked up and asked if I wanted to pray for him.  I said yes, gently took his hand, and asked God to give him strength…to bring as much peace as possible to Wing and the family as he found himself balancing between life and death.  Then I went to that rich place…a place where words fail…a place I had found over decades in a scripture teaching ministry…a place so familiar…so intimate…so comforting…like putting on that old, familiar pair of tennis shoes.  You know, the ones that make you feel just right!  I asked in that meaningful language of the angels for God to take from me whatever Wing might need…whatever I might be able to give…

And then I was gone…

The next morning after breakfast, we stopped by the hospital on the way to the airport, but were unable to see him. The doctors were doing rounds…I was anxious, and would have to wait to get the news.  It had been a quick trip…

I got the report this morning that the respirator had been removed and Wing was breathing on his own…that he was responsive to questions and seemed more alert.

In the end…or rather in the process, for I am unclear of the end…I am reminded how important we are to one another.  How the fabric of our lives penetrate the lives of others, the bond of which becomes so much more than each individual piece.  I am reminded how deeply we reach into one another’s hearts, and how much we take for granted our breath which is as fragile as the most delicate crystal…

- ted