I was just forty years old when I suffered a heart attack which forced me into an early retirement.  I went through a really depressing time during which I didn’t seem to know who or what I was or could be.  This was indeed a disheartening time for me, my wife and my kids as well as anyone who knew me.  My wife had to update her education so she could fill in for me.  She got a job at a state hospital as a registered nurse.  This hospital was for terminally ill patients’. 

          After some time of wasting myself by feeling sorry for poor Lew, I visited the hospital and after meeting a man who would become a dear friend I became a volunteer.

Lynn was a man to admire.  He suffered polio as a kid and was confined to a wheelchair.  This however was not really enough to confine him.  The fact is when I first met him he was a patient there.  While he was being treated this man did not know the meaning of the word failure.  He managed somehow to motivate other patients and generate government support to set up a computer lab for patients to give them something to do.  Lynn is with God now but that computer lab still runs and through it Lynn still lives.

          The reason I write about this is easy.  I watched and soon began working with Lynn.  While doing this I became friends with a host of people who were patients, many of whom were confined not only to wheel chairs but to bed.

          Before long Lynn was no longer a patient, but would you believe he had landed himself a job in public relations at this hospital.

This was great therapy for me.  How could I feel sorry for myself when I saw this man and also got to know others, all of whom had physical problems much worse than mine?  I will remember Lynn as a person who simply didn’t give up.  Whatever life threw at him he simply made the best of it and pushed on.  I pray I will be remembered like that!