The Heart Remembers

by Al Lacy

  “Both Pastor Shane and I have extended the invitation to you before, but let me ask again—will you come to church tomorrow? Tharyn told me what Pastor Shane is preaching about in the morning, and it sounds very interesting.”

  Kirby backed toward the door. “Tell you what. I’ll try to be there in the morning.”

  Dr. Dane stepped toward him, chuckling. “When people say they’ll try to make it to church, they seldom do. How about just saying you’ll be there?”

  Kirby stared at him silently.

  The doctor said, “I very much appreciate your taking the time to come here and express your appreciation for my part in the Chief Tando surrender, Kirby. That’s very nice of you. I want to do something nice for you. I want you to come to church and hear some good Bible preaching. Will you come?”

  Kirby smiled nervously. There was a twitch in his cheek as he said, “All right, Dr. Dane. I’ll be at church in the morning.”

  FOURTEEN

  Dr. Dane and Tharyn Logan watched Kirby Holton move down the boardwalk. When he passed from view, Dane turned to Tharyn and said softly, “I want so much to see Kirby come to the Lord. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if when Pastor is preaching in the morning, the gospel light shined down into Kirby’s soul so powerfully that he would see that his ‘religion’ is only a humanistic thing, but the true gospel of Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven?”

  Tharyn smiled and nodded. “It sure would. We’ll pray hard for him tonight.”

  At that moment, they caught sight of Eric Cox pulling up in front of the office in his buggy. A woman sat slumped on the seat next to him, her head propped against his shoulder.

  At first, they thought it must be his wife, Nelda, but when Dr. Dane hurried and opened the door, Eric was helping the woman sit up straight, and they could see that it was the Cox’s neighbor, fifty-five-year-old widow Carlene Hughes.

  In July, Dr. Dane and Tharyn had taken the Coxes to Mile High Hospital in Denver, where Dr. Dane did a hip replacement on Nelda. He had also led both of them to the Lord, and they were now faithful members of the church in Central City.

  The Logans had met Carlene only once before when she came in for treatment of a rash several weeks earlier.

  As Eric drew up, carrying Carlene like a child in his arms, her eyes were bulging, and she was breathing hard and biting her lips in evident pain.

  Dr. Dane widened the door opening. “What’s wrong, Eric?”

  “I think she’s having heart failure, Doctor. She’s having severe chest pains.”

  “Let’s get her into the examining room.”

  As Dr. Dane led Eric toward the back room door, Tharyn took hold of Carlene’s hand, squeezed it, and said, “Hold on, honey. We’ll take care of you.”

  When Carlene looked up at Tharyn, there was more than pain showing in her eyes. She was also quite frightened.

  Dr. Dane led Eric to curtained section number one, and helped him place Carlene on the examining table. Tharyn placed a slim pillow under her head.

  Dr. Dane looked at Eric. “Thank you for bringing her in. I’ll need you to go to the waiting room while I work on her. We’ll advise you of what we learn as soon as we have time to check her over.”

  Eric managed a smile. “I’ll be anxious to hear your diagnosis, Doctor.”

  Tharyn had gone to retrieve one of her husband’s stethoscopes from a nearby counter, and stepped in as Eric was walking toward the door.

  Dr. Dane took the stethoscope from her, mouthed a Thank you, and began listening to Carlene’s heart. Tharyn moved around to the opposite side of the table and watched her husband as he carefully moved the microphone from place to place on her chest, sides, and back.

  At one point, he paused and glanced at Tharyn. “Honey, will you check her pulse for me, please?”

  Tharyn took hold of Carlene’s wrist and watched the second hand of the small clock that sat on the cart near the head of the examining table.

  Carlene’s frightened eyes were open, and she was watching both doctor and nurse as they worked on her. Dr. Dane said, “Carlene, have you ever had this kind of pain before?”

  A sheen of perspiration covered the woman’s pale face as she looked up at him. A look bordering on panic was in her pain-dulled eyes. “No. Not like this.”

  “Have you had any symptoms other than this pain?”

  Carlene swallowed hard. “Well, I have been quite short of breath for the past few days, and my stomach hasn’t been right for about that long. Sort of nauseated much of the time.”

  “Uh-huh,” said the doctor, still listening closely to her heart. “But this severe pain just started today?”

  She clenched her teeth for a few seconds, let out a short breath and drew in another one. “Yes. I had it some this morning, but it grew worse as the day went on. It became so unbearable a little while ago that I called out to Eric from one of my windows. He came into the house, took one look at me, and carried me to his buggy. He hitched up the horse in a hurry, and brought me here. He said Nelda was visiting some neighbors down the street. There wasn’t time to try to contact her.”

  The doctor was still moving the microphone of the stethoscope around. He stopped, looked down at her with solemn eyes, and said, “What I’m hearing, along with what you just told me about your shortness of breath and nausea, goes hand in hand with what I believe is your problem.”

  Terror clouded the woman’s face. “What is it?”

  He looked at Tharyn, who had just finished checking the pulse. She said, “Her pulse is 198 beats a minute.”

  Dr. Dane took a deep breath and sighed. “Carlene, I must tell you that you have a very serious problem. It is called angina pectoris, which is coronary artery disease.”

  “Am—am I going to die?” she asked in a thin, plaintive voice.

  Dr. Dane laid a hand on her arm. “I’m going to do everything I can to keep that from happening, Carlene. I’m going to put you on nitroglycerin.” Dr. Dane turned to Tharyn. “Honey, would you bring a bottle of nitroglycerin to me with a cup half-full of water, please?”

  Tharyn patted Carlene’s hand. “Carlene, my husband knows what he’s doing. Trust him.” She then hurried out of the curtained section and headed toward the medicine cabinet across the room.

  “Dr. Logan, I have heard of nitroglycerin being used for heart patients,” Carlene said, “but I’ve never understood why. How can an explosive help a person’s heart?”

  “It didn’t start out as an explosive.”

  “Oh?”

  “Nitroglycerin was first used by doctors in Europe, starting in late 1846, when they learned from an Italian scientist that when taken by mouth, it removed fibrous and fatty tissue deposits from the blood vessels in the heart.”

  Her frown was slowly fading. “Eighteen forty-six, huh? And it actually removes these deposits from the heart’s blood vessels?”

  “Yes. You see, if those deposits are not removed, they’ll cause heart failure and death.”

  Carlene bit her lower lip. “You told Tharyn to bring a bottle. So nitroglycerin is a liquid?”

  “Yes. It is a colorless, oily liquid having a sweet, burning taste. The Italian scientist I mentioned was a chemist. His name was Ascanio Sobrero. He first produced nitroglycerin in 1846 by adding glycerol to a mixture of concentrated nitric and sulfuric acids. It was eighteen years later—in 1864—that Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel came up with nitroglycerin as an explosive. And nitroglycerin has been used to relieve angina pectoris here in America since 1850.”

  Carlene closed her eyes, swallowed with difficulty, opened them again, and asked, “Will the nitroglycerin you’re going to give me save my life?”

  “There is no way to guarantee it, but you most certainly will die if the arteries in your heart are allowed to clog up any more than they already have.”

  Tharyn entered the curtained section carrying the bottle of nitroglycerin and the half-full cup of water. As she set them on the cart, Carlene clasped her hands together, drew a
shuddering breath and cried, “Oh, Doctor! I’m—I’m afraid to die! Help me! Help me!”

  Dr. Dane started to speak, but Tharyn took the terrified woman’s clasped hands into her own and squeezed them. “Please, Carlene, you’re only making your situation worse. Dr. Dane is going to do everything possible to help you. Now, you need to calm down. As you’ve just heard, there is medicine for your problem, and my husband will do everything in his power to save your life and help heal you.”

  Carlene clenched her teeth, drew in another shuddering breath, and said with a tremor in her voice, “There—there really is a good chance that the nitroglycerin will keep me from dying?”

  Tharyn bent low over her and gave her a reassuring smile. “You’re going to get better. Just let the doctor do his work, and cooperate with him.”

  A serenity seemed to appear in Carlene’s eyes. She nodded. “All right.”

  “Good girl,” said Dr. Dane, then told Tharyn the exact proportions to use in mixing the nitroglycerin with the water in the cup.

  When it was done, Tharyn handed him the cup. He took it, and said, “All right now, Carlene, I am going to lift your head a little and put the cup to your lips. Drink it slowly.”

  When she had drained the cup, he eased her head down and said, “Just relax now. You should be feeling less pain, and your anxiety should subside shortly. Nitroglycerin is a potent drug. In the medical world, we’ve been seeing great results from it. I’ll check on you in a few minutes. I’m going out to the waiting room and explain this situation to Eric. I want to keep you here for several hours so we can watch you closely. I’ll tell Eric to go on home for now, and to come back at five. If you’re doing all right by then, he can take you home. Is there someone who can stay with you when you go home, so you don’t have to exert yourself for a while?”

  “Oh, yes. Even though Nelda still limps a little from the hip replacement you did on her, I know she’ll spend time with me, and there are other neighbor ladies who’ll come in when she can’t.”

  “Good. Tharyn will stay right here at your side while I go talk to Eric. Be back in a few minutes.”

  When Dr. Dane entered the office, he found five people in the waiting room in addition to Eric Cox. He noted that two of the five had appointments, and asked the other three why they were there. When they told him, he could see that there was no emergency. He then explained that he had an emergency situation at the moment, but told all five he would get to them as soon as he could.

  He then took Eric into his private office and told him that Carlene had coronary artery disease, and that he had given her nitroglycerin, which would remove the fibrous and fatty tissues from the arteries of her heart.

  Like Carlene, Eric commented that he had heard of nitroglycerin being used on people with heart problems, and asked how an explosive could help a person’s heart. Dr. Dane explained it as he had done with Carlene.

  “Amazing,” said Eric. “So Doctor, do you think that Carlene will live?”

  “I believe we’ve caught it in its early stages, Eric. I feel quite confident that she will be all right. I wish we had a hospital, or at least a clinic, but we don’t, and she sure couldn’t take the trip to Denver, so we have to handle the situation the best we can. I want to keep her here at the office for observation for the rest of the day. Could you come back and get her at five o’clock? She told me that Nelda would stay with her until she’s doing better, and there were other neighbor ladies who would come in and stay with her whenever Nelda couldn’t.”

  “We’ll see to it that she’s taken care of, Doctor. I’ll be here at five.”

  “Good.”

  “And, Doctor …”

  “Mm-hmm?”

  “Nelda and I have talked to Carlene about the Lord, but she thinks she’s all right with God because she’s a moral person and believes He exists. You might—”

  “I’m already planning on doing that. Tharyn and I could tell that she doesn’t know Jesus as her Saviour the way she was showing such fear of dying. I’m going to talk to her about her need to be saved when I go back in there.”

  “Good. Well, see you at five o’clock. I’ll have Nelda with me. When she finds out about this, she will definitely want to come along and help.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Oh, and thanks for telling me the nitroglycerin story. I have always thought it was Alfred Nobel who came up with it first as an explosive, then the medical world got ahold of it later. Good history lesson today.”

  The doctor chuckled. “Guess we all ought to learn something new every day.”

  “Well, I sure did today, anyway.”

  Moments later, Dr. Dane entered the back room, and as he moved toward the curtained section where Tharyn was standing over Carlene, he heard Carlene’s voice pitched high with fear as she said, “Tharyn, I know Dr. Logan is an excellent physician and surgeon, but from what he told me about this disease, I’m afraid I’m going to die! Oh, please! Don’t let me die!”

  “Carlene, please get a grip on yourself,” said Tharyn. “We’re doing all we can for you. We both feel quite confident that you’re going to be all right.”

  Dr. Dane drew up on the opposite side of the table from where Tharyn was standing. He told Tharyn of the five people in the waiting room, and named those who had appointments. He told her that he had explained to all five that he had an emergency on his hands, but would get to them as soon as possible … and that they were all willing to wait.

  Tharyn said, “Good. We’ve got to help Carlene right now.”

  “Yes,” said the doctor with concern evident in his voice. “I feel that helping Carlene with her fear of death is an emergency.”

  Tharyn nodded. “I do, too.”

  Dr. Dane then laid a gentle hand on the frightened patient’s arm and spoke softly. “Carlene, a little while ago, you told me that you’re afraid to die, and asked me to help you.”

  “Y-yes.”

  “As I was coming here into the back room, I heard you say again that you are afraid you are going to die, and I heard you begging Tharyn not to let you die.”

  “Yes! I’m very much afraid of dying, Doctor!”

  “Let me tell you something. Even when I was a teenager, I used to have a horrid fear of dying. None of us wants to die, of course. But when I got born again, the fear of dying went away. I know now that if I should die, I would be in heaven with the Lord.” He paused, glanced at Tharyn, then looked back down at Carlene. “Do you have that assurance?”

  Carlene licked her lips. “I certainly hope I will go to heaven when I die.”

  Dr. Dane leaned down closer to her. “But if you only hope you will go to heaven when you die, you really don’t have assurance, do you?”

  She stared at him for a brief moment, then said, “Well, how can anyone do any more than hope? We all do wrong, so I guess it depends on how much wrong we do whether we’ll be allowed into heaven when we die. I try to live as good as I can. I’m a moral person, and I do my best to treat other people right. But—”

  “This is why you’re fearful about dying, Carlene,” spoke up Tharyn. “You think you might still come up short on your good deeds outnumbering your bad deeds when you go into eternity to face the almighty God.”

  “Well, I—I—”

  “You do believe what the Bible says about there being a real burning hell, like there is a real wonderful heaven, don’t you?”

  “I do. And I certainly don’t want to go to hell. But, Doctor, you said you know that if you should die, you would be in heaven with the Lord. How can you say you know? Are you perfect and without sin?”

  “No, I’m not. But my going to heaven doesn’t depend on my good works. God’s Word says in Romans 3:12, speaking of the entire human race, ‘They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.’ Did you catch the word ‘all’? They are all gone out of the way. There is none that doeth good.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”r />
  “You see, Carlene, in the eyes of almighty God, there isn’t one human being who does good. In ourselves, we can never deserve to enter heaven. We must be born again by receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour. When we take Him into our hearts, He takes us into Him in a beautiful spiritual way, and places us in the family of God.

  “When the heavenly Father looks at the born-again person, He sees him in Christ, and He sees us righteous in Christ, not in ourselves. There’s another verse in Romans chapter three that says, ‘There is none righteous, no, not one.’ Trying to miss hell and go to heaven by our own good works and our own righteousness will only land us in hell. We must come to the Father through His only begotten Son. There is no other way.”

  Carlene batted her eyelids and licked her lips again. “Dr. Logan, I have never heard this before. You did say that when you got born again, you lost your fear of dying. I’ve heard of this being ‘born again,’ but I know nothing about it. Will you help me?”

  Dr. Dane looked at Tharyn, who had tears in her eyes, then looked down at Carlene again. “I sure will. Be right back.”

  With that, the doctor rushed to the medicine cabinet, took a Bible out of a drawer, and rushed back.

  Tharyn said, “I want to be in here while you show Carlene what the Bible says, honey. But I should go out to the office and see if anyone else has come in. You go ahead and begin. I’ll be back shortly.”

  “All right.”

  Dr. Dane opened the Bible as Tharyn hurried toward the door.

  Carlene’s eyes were glued on the tall, handsome physician as he flipped pages, then looked at her and said, “First, I want to read you a portion of Psalm 119:160. Listen to what the psalmist said to God. ‘Thy word is true from the beginning.’ Do you believe that, Carlene?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Good. Then whatever I show you in this Book, you will accept as truth, right?”

  “I sure will.”

  They heard the office door open and close, and rapid footsteps coming their way. Tharyn moved into the curtained section. “Still just the five. And they are being very cooperative.”