Last time I saw Joe a few years ago, he had just recovered from a major heart attack and spent some time in the hospital and was now, carefully, back to work. And I had just had the symptoms for four hours in the middle of the night of a heart attack but had stupidly not gone to the hospital: by the time I was sure I needed to, all I could do was hang onto life. Any exertion towards so much as reaching for the phone to call 911 or waking up my husband had gone beyond me.

And then, lupus-like, it let up, and at 4:00 a.m. I finally went to sleep.

So they’ll never quite know, though they’ve documented previous lupus inflammation in one heart valve but that’s long been in remission.

Richard’s aunt whom I adore who’s a nurse said to me later, And you want to wake up next time, too–call 911! Don’t wait!

Yes ma’am. (And I meant it. Don’t wait for it to become painful. Now I know.)

Meantime: Joe was working on a job in our neighborhood, he told me when I called him yesterday, and he’d almost almost stopped by just to say hi but was afraid it would sound like he was just trying to drum up business, so he hadn’t. And here I was right after that calling to say hey Joe could you check out our furnace for us! He laughed and went, Meant to be. Sure, see you tomorrow.

Which he did. I told him Richard thought it smelled like burning coffee and we joked that the roofing guys must have left a cup on the unit. We all agreed it was probably just accumulated dust, but he went up there to be sure and spent a good half hour going over everything and also checking out the ductwork he’d installed awhile ago.

Might want to turn the furnace on full blast and open all the windows the first cold day every year to let it air out, he told us.

All was good. He came back down, we chatted briefly, he satisfied himself that he didn’t have to worry, his heart nor mine nor the furnace, we’re doing great–and then he picked up his ladder to leave.

I was going, Wait. What do I owe you?

He turned back with the biggest grin. “Nothing!”

Wait!

But-Joe! You spent the time, you, I mean… !

He answered that he was doing this job right around the corner so he was right there so, hey, there you go.

All I could do was call, “Thank you!” after him.