by Donald Hancock

Created on: March 06, 2011

Dianne Sawyer shared a story on ABC News that bears repeating. In the little town of Goodhue, Minn. it was much too early to think of Spring. There was certainly no GREEN to be found anywhere. But something happened there that gives me a sense of "newness" and hope - you might even say AWAKENING - that we usually feel with the beginning of  Spring.

 Howard Snitzer stopped in Goodhue to go to the grocery. Just before entering the store, Mr. Snitzer fell to the ground with a massive heart attack. Candace Cain, a shopper in the store,  began to apply compressions to his chest. Someone called 911. Meanwhile, Roy and Al, from the repair shop across the street, rushed over and relieved Candace when her arms gave out. Roy and Al  passed it on to a plumber, who gave it up to a carpenter, then to a county employee.

So it continued as two dozen pairs of hands kept Mr. Snitzer's heart pumping. When the medical helicopter arrived, 96 minutes later, there were twenty other people lined up. It seemed that, in Goodhue, a town so small it didn't even have a stop light, there was no shortage of people who care. No one even knew Mr. Snitzer. But they showed what friendship is all about.

There is something significant about the situation called "heart arrest". The victim might be the finest heart surgeon in the world, but he can't help himself at that moment. Yet a Boy Scout with a merit badge in First Aid can save the surgeon's life. There is a bit of that same significance about the way that friendship works.

While few of us will experience heart arrest, all of us will experience "emotional arrest". Something will happen to us that will strike a blow to our emotional health and, because we are the person involved, we can not really help ourselves. Let me share a partial list of such happenings. Illness happens to yourself or someone close to you and your whole life is put on hold. You lose your driver's license because of vision problems, age, or physical injury. Your husband dies. Your pet dog, that you have shared life with for ten or fifteen years, goes to his reward. Divorce happens. These "happenings" are situations that, like heart arrest, you can not really handle yourself because you are the one it is happening to.

Now suppose such things are happening to people YOU know, which they are. Think of yourself for just a moment as the Boy Scout who happens to have gotten a merit badge on how to say, "I am so sorry!"  While that might seem rather insignificant, it might be the very thing that will give a friend, an acquaintance, or even someone you hardly know, the help she needs at the moment. That is friendship even though it is just a few heart felt words.

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