Sometimes the best thing a woman ever does for a man is to administer kicks in his pants until he smartens up. This man had been suffering from chest pain all evening but was too stubborn to go to the emergency department and get checked out until his wife nagged him into it. Five minutes after he got to us in the ED he tried to die right in front of our eyes; his mouth stopped talking, his lungs stopped breathing, and his heart stopped beating.
A couple of shocks to the heart and a few minutes later, he was alert, talking, and thinking he might listen to his wife’s advice more carefully in the future. Had he suffered his cardiac arrest at home, I probably would have been pronouncing him dead that night instead of congratulating him for marrying a smart woman who gave him the gift of a second chance at life.
A second chance is a great gift, a gift most of us either need to get from someone in our lives, give to someone in our lives, or both. Now, most of us cannot give the gift of a heart-starting 100 joules of electricity to someone, or drag our spouse’s sorry hide into the ED to have it saved. We could, however, give a smaller second chance gift that could lift a heart, even if it did not save one. Perhaps I am projecting (no, I am definitely projecting), but I think if most of us picked gingerly through the dark closet of hurts in the attic of our psyches, we would find plenty of raw material just waiting for a do-over, a second chance for us to make it right with some-one somewhere in our lives.
We might, for example, call someone we stopped calling a long time ago after a fight over some issue that time has made less important. If you have not talked to your old man for 20 years because he was an alcoholic SOB, could this be the year that the umpteenth second chance you give him finally brings you two back together? How about that best girlfriend you have not talked to since she made a pass at your boyfriend? He was a fling and gone, but she was the real thing and perhaps still lives in the same town hoping for your offer of a second chance.
Sometimes a second chance is something you need to give yourself, like the career you always wanted but never dared to reach for, or the high school diploma you passed up 10 years ago because you had to start working like a dog in the mill at age 18. Sometimes it’s like a lot of Christmas gifts; if you really want it you have to ask for it. That mistake you made 10 years ago that cost you a great friendship? Maybe it’s time to call that person up and ask for a chance to make amends and start over.
A second chance is the right gift for these hard economic times. It’s a great gift for the man who has everything but your forgiveness for some past transgression. It’s a perfect gift from the woman whose Visa card already is maxed out, it may cost only some time, a call or card, and perhaps some emotional risk and swallowed hurt.
There probably are people in all of our lives who not only don’t deserve a second chance from us, but should be thrown into a pit bull convention while wearing a suit of prime rib. But here’s a thought: Take out your list of people who need a second chance (you included), put on some Christmas music and lace the eggnog with rum. Then, when the spirits have lifted you, give that list a careful look. Find someone on it and administer the shock of a second chance. If wrapped with heart and tied up with a ribbon of luck, that person will not get a better gift this Christmas.
Erik Steele D.O., a physician in Bangor, is chief medical officer of Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems and is on the staff of several hospital emergency rooms in the region.