The next time someone needs you ... just be there. Stay.

A nurse took the tired, anxious serviceman 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.

He dimly saw the young uniformed Officer standing outside the oxygen tent. He reached out his hand. The Officer wrapped his toughened fingers around the old man's limp ones, squeezing a message of love and encouragement.

The nurse brought a chair so that the Officer could sit beside the bed. All through the night the young Officer 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 Officer move away and rest awhile. He refused. Whenever the nurse came into the ward, the Officer was oblivious of her and of the night noises of the hospital.

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 Officer 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 the Officer interrupted her.

"Who was that man?" he asked.

The nurse was startled, "He was your father," she answered.

"No, he wasn't," the Officer 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."

The next time someone needs you ... just be there. Stay.