"I value the friend who finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who, for me, does not consult his calendar." ~ Robert Brault

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After being paralyzed in a hiking accident, I came home scrawny, skinny, and cold. Not only did I lose my ability to walk or use my hands, but I also lost the ability to control my body temperature. When it’s cold, I’m cold. When it’s hot, I’m hot. My body doesn’t shiver like it did before and it doesn’t sweat to cool me off. Once at one temperature extreme, it is very difficult to bring it back to normal. On a particularly troublesome day while trying to get warm (even though it was summer), my neighbor, Melanie, invited me to her house to sit in her hot tub and hopefully warm up. Melanie’s hot tub rules did not allow solo hot tubbing, so after she lifted me in she got in too. It was good because my scrawny body couldn’t quite keep my head above water.
It was taking quite a long time for me to warm up and I stayed for an hour. Then another hour. Then another…

Melanie wasn’t enjoying the warm hot tub as much as I was. In fact, she was lobster red and trying to keep her body outside the water as much as possible.

About that time, Jaimee, an old school friend of mine, came by for a visit. She grew up in the neighborhood and her casual jeans-and-t-shirt made her look like she had never left.

After some hellos and across-the-ledge hugs, Jaimee noticed Melanie’s rosy cheeks and lobster-red body and asked her why she just didn’t get out. Melanie explained the hot tub rules and how she needed to help me keep my head above water.

Jaimee looked at Melanie. Then at me. And, without another word, without another thought, and without removing her shoes, she jumped over the ledge and into the hot tub – with both feet, jeans and all!

Her splash sent waves through the hot tub. Waves of selflessness. Waves of friendship. And waves of compassion that warmed my heart in a way the heated water couldn’t. She rescued Melanie from the heat and kept my head above water.                                                                                                          

It seems that each time I’ve been left in the cold and found myself shivering with anxiety, sadness, or despair, unable to keep my head above life’s floods, I am rescued by a friend like Jaimee who just came by for a visit.

These friends of mine come with empty hands, wanting to put them to work. They come with empty ears, waiting to fill them with my words.

These friends, my sisters on errand just to visit, must have been known by the poet Emily H. Woodmansee:

Nor shall our attention be wholly restricted

To training our children or shaping our dress;

The aged, the feeble, the poor and afflicted,

Our labors shall comfort, our efforts shall bless.

Jaimee didn’t know I shivered in the cold. She didn’t know I couldn’t keep my head above water. She didn’t know Melanie needed a break.

She just came for a visit.

And jumped in with both feet.

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When life gets too hard to stand, just keep on rollin'