Re: OT: Nice story. Don't know if true but...

["Jim" <alarminex@xxxxxxx>]

Robert L Bass wrote:
> A nurse took the tired, anxious young man to the bedside. "Your son's here," she said to the old man.
>
> She had to repeat the words several times before the patient's eyes opened.
>
> Heavily sedated because of the pain of his heart attack, he dimly saw the young uniformed young man standing outside the oxygen
> tent. He reached out his hand. The young man wrapped his toughened fingers around the old man's limp ones, squeezing a message of
> love and encouragement.
>
> The nurse brought a chair so that the young man could sit beside the bed. All through the night the young Marine sat there in the
> poorly lighted ward, holding the old man's hand and offering him words of love and strength. Occasionally, the nurse suggested that
> the young man move away and rest a while.
>
> He refused. Whenever the nurse came into the ward, the young man was oblivious of her and of the night noises of the hospital - the
> clanking of the oxygen tank, the laughter of the night staff members exchanging greetings, the cries and moan of the other patients.
>
> Now and then she heard him say a few gentle words. The dying man said nothing, only held tightly to his son all through the night.
> Along towards dawn, the old man died. The young man released the now lifeless hand he had been holding and went to tell the nurse.
> While she did what she had to do, he waited.
>
> Finally, she returned. She started to offer words of sympathy, but the young man interrupted her. "Who was that man?" he asked.
>
> The nurse was startled, "He was your father." she answered.
>
> "No, he wasn't," the young man replied. "I never saw him before in my life."
>
> "Then why didn't you say something when I took you to him?"
>
> "I knew right away there had been a mistake, but I also knew he needed his son, and his son just wasn't there.
>
> When I realized that he was too sick to tell whether or not I was his son, knowing how much he needed me, I stayed."
>

Jeeeeze ...... I guess you're thinking a lot more about dying lately
....... Huh?