Just be there!

nurse took the tired, anxious man to the bedside.
"Your son is 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 man standing outside
the oxygen tent. He reached out his hand. The man
wrapped his fingers around the old man's limp ones,
squeezing a message of love and encouragement.

The nurse brought a chair so that the man could sit
beside the bed. All through the night the young man
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
man move away and rest awhile.

He refused. Whenever the nurse came into the ward,
the 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 moans 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 he interrupted her. "Who was that man?"
he asked. The nurse was startled, "He was your father,"
she answered. "No, he wasn't," the Marine 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
here. 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."