Your Son's
Blood
Author Unknown
The day is
over, you are driving home. You tune in your radio. You hear a little
blurb about a little village in India where some villagers have died
suddenly, strangely, of a flu that has never been seen before. It's not
influenza, but three or four people are dead, and it's kind of
interesting, and they're sending some doctors over there to investigate
it.
You don't think
much about it, but on Sunday, coming home from church, you hear another
radio spot. Only they say it's not three villagers, it's 30,000
villagers in the back hills of this particular area of India, and it's
on TV that night. CNN runs a little blurb: people are heading there from
the disease center in Atlanta because this disease strain has never been
seen before.
By Monday
morning when you get up, it's the lead story. For it's not just India;
it's Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and before you know it, you're hearing
this story everywhere and they have coined it in now as "the mystery
flu". The President has made some comment that he and everyone are
praying and hoping that all will go well over there. But everyone is
wondering, how are we going to contain it?
That's when the
President of France makes an announcement that shocks Europe. He is
closing their borders. No flights from India, Pakistan, or any of the
countries where this thing has been seen. And that's why that night you
are watching a little bit of CNN before going to bed. Your jaw hits your
chest when a weeping woman is translated from a French news program into
English: There's a man lying in a hospital in Paris dying of mystery
flu. It has come to Europe.
Panic strikes.
As best they
can tell, once you get it, you have it for a week before you know it.
Then you have four days of unbelievable symptoms. And then you die.
Britain closes
it's borders, but it's too late. South Hampton, Liverpool, North
Hampton, and it's Tuesday morning when the President of the United
States makes the following announcement:
"Due to a national security risk, all flights to and from Europe and
Asia have been canceled. If your loved ones are overseas, I'm sorry.
They cannot come back until we find a cure for this thing."
Within four
days our nation has been plunged into an unbelievable fear. People are
selling little masks for your face. People are talking about "What if it
comes to this country," and preachers on Tuesday are saying, "It's the
scourge of God."
It's Wednesday
night and you are at the church prayer meeting when somebody runs in
from the parking lot and says, "Turn on a radio, turn on a radio." And
while the church listens to a little transistor radio with a microphone
stuck up to it, the announcement is made: "Two women are lying in a Long
Island hospital dying from the mystery flu."
Within hours it
seems, this thing just sweeps across the country. People are working
around the clock trying to find an antidote. Nothing is working.
California, Oregon, Arizona, Florida, Massachusetts. It's as though it's
just sweeping in from the borders.
And then, all
of a sudden the news come out. The code has been broken. A cure can be
found. A vaccine can be made. It's going to take the blood of somebody
who hasn't been infected, and so, sure enough, all through the Midwest,
through all those channels of emergency broadcasting, everyone is asked
to do one simple thing: Go to your downtown hospital and have your blood
type taken. That's all we ask of you. When you hear the sirens go off in
your neighborhood, please make your way quickly, quietly, and safely to
the hospitals.
Sure enough,
when you and your family get down there late on that Friday night, there
is a long line, and they've go nurses and doctors coming out and
pricking fingers and taking blood and putting labels on it. Your wife
and your kids are out there, and they take your blood type and they say,
"Wait here in the parking lot and if we call your name, you can be
dismissed and go home."
You stand
around, scared, with your neighbors, wondering what in the world is
going on and if this is the end of the world.
Suddenly a
young man comes running out of the hospital screaming. He's yelling a
name and waving a clipboard. What? He yells it again! And your son tugs
on your jacket and says, "Daddy, that's me."
Before you know
it, they have grabbed your boy. Wait a minute. Hold on! And they say,
"It's okay, his blood is clean. His blood is pure. We want to make sure
he doesn't have the disease. We think he has got the right type."
Five tense
minutes later, out come the doctors and nurses, crying and hugging one
another-some are even laughing. It's the first time you have seen
anybody laugh in a week, and an old doctor walks up to you and says
"Thank you, sir. Your son's blood type is perfect. It's clean, it is
pure, and we can make the vaccine."
As the word
begins to spread all across that parking lot full of folks, people are
screaming and praying and laughing and crying. But then the gray-haired
doctor pulls you and your wife aside and says, "May we see you for a
moment? We didn't realize that the donor would be a minor and we
need...we need you to sign a consent form."
You begin to
sign and then you see that the number of pints of blood to be taken is
empty. "H-how many pints?" And that is when the old doctor's smile fades
and he says,
"We had no idea it would be a little child. We weren't prepared. We need
it all!"
"But-but...You
don't understand."
"We are talking
about the world here. Please sign. We-we need it all!"
"But can't you
give him a transfusion?"
"If we had
clean blood we would. Can you sign? Would you sign?" In numb silence,
you do. Then they say, "Would you like to have a moment with him before
we begin?"
Can you walk
back? Can you walk back to that room where he sits on a table saying,
"Daddy? What's going on?" Can you take his hands and say, "Son, I love
you, and I would never let anything happen to you that didn't just have
to be. Do you understand that?"
And when that
old doctor comes back in and says, "I'm sorry, we've-we've got to get
started. People all over the world are dying." Can you leave?
Can you walk
out while he is saying, "Dad? Dad? Why-why have you forsaken me?"
And then next
week, when they have the ceremony to honor your son, and some folks
sleep through it, and some folks don't even come because they go to the
lake instead, and some folks come with a pretentious smile and just
pretend to care. Would you want to jump up and say, "MY SON DIED FOR
YOU! DON'T YOU CARE?"
Is that what
GOD wants to say? "MY SON DIED FOR YOU. DON'T YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I
CARE?"
"Father ,
seeing it from your eyes breaks our hearts. Maybe now we can begin to
comprehend the great Love you have for us."
