I read in the newspaper yesterday that one of my partner’s patients died. Apparently he was one of the “lucky ones”  that “died in his sleep.” Doesn’t that sound nice, I thought? Just think of passing from life to life-everlasting while snoring away quietly in the middle of a peaceful dream.

And then I started to think about it a little more. Who said that he was asleep? Was it his wife who happened to be snoring away in the bed next to him? Or was it a family member away at the grocery store picking up last minute items for breakfast the next morning only to return and find him passed?

I have some bad news for you. He probably wasn’t asleep at all. When I suffered my heart attack, I was clutching my chest in intractable chest pressure, unable to cry out loud enough to be heard by anyone within ear shot. This guy was probably doing the same. Just because you were sound asleep and dead to the world doesn’t mean that your partner was.

Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord your snoring wasn’t fake.