I got to spend some time with my father the other day; he was recovering nicely from his recent relapse. He was first taken to the hospital about a month ago with a high fever, signs of a recent heart attack, pneumonia, a secondary infection and even more infection throughout his bloodstream. He recovered from that, for the most part, and was in a regular room in the hospital when he experienced a setback and was moved into the acute care ward again. After that, he re-developed pneumonia and was, on Sunday morning a week ago, placed back on life support.

The folks in the intensive care unit had said he was the most sick person in their ward, but I didn't take that to heart. You can't believe everything the doctors say without putting it to the test of faith. Of course I listen to what they say and understand they are giving their report as best they know how. I simply defer my hopes to a higher power than a man.

I try to be positive and look to the positive parts of the report from the doctors (which were few and far between). There is nothing accomplished at all by worry and even less than nothing is accomplished by negativity.

Even if nothing but comfort is accomplished by being positive, that's still better than accomplishing nothing or less.

But there was more accomplished than that in the long run. We all got the opportunity to witness another miraculous turnaround for him, from being near death's door to talking and sitting up eating supper.

When I saw him that first Sunday, he was hooked to a ventilator and being fed through a tube again. His kidneys had quit working. The doctors were grim.

By Wednesday, he was having supper and talking, although with a rough and raspy voice. There is nothing like seeing someone you love make such a turnaround.

One of the first things he told me when I went in was that I shouldn't worry about him because, "Jesus takes care of me."

It was nice to see faith in the face of death like that. I hope I can be so brave when I stare into the 'lion's mouth' one day. I'm sure it would be easier to give up, but he is a fighter. He's always been a fighter who has overcome some pretty long odds. To him, it was just another mountain to climb.

As I said before, he survived three years in a prison camp, several serious car accidents including one that crushed several vertebrae in his spine, a fall from a ladder that broke his back and enough trips to the hospital in the past year (including four or five extended stays in intensive care) to kill a young healthy man.

If he can get through that, he can get through anything. So I don't worry about him. I visit him as much as I can and try to enjoy however much time he has left in this world. I hope he dies a peaceful death one day, not caused by sickness or injury, but of a more natural cause.

All kidding aside, I know that there is appointed to each man a time to die, I'm sure it is not his time. Besides, I don't think that means anything very specific — a time to live sure is pretty vague time-wise, isn't it? But we make the one mean that there is a pre-conceived hour and minute and the other mean nothing. Oh, well, I'm not here to argue religion and philosophy.

I know I will miss him when his time to go comes along, but I'll know I've done all that was in my power to do while he was here.

I have had a few other family members that died whom I didn't visit as faithfully. Some of them died unexpectedly and I didn't feel good about neglecting them. After that, I decided that I would try to do better by my family, friends and acquaintances.

Anyway, this is supposed to be a happy story about one man's recovery from the edge of death for the second time in a month. It's pretty hard to write a happy column that contains information about death, sickness and hospitals. But even at the brink of death, on the edge of disaster or in the pit of despair and death's own door, hope still can be found.

Get more tongue in cheek commentary this week's issue of the Alleghany News!

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