Henry Coffeen III
Seguin, Texas
“I still have my plane at least,” I said to myself as I drove into our local airfield that sunny November afternoon. She was a custom-built EDGE 540 aerobatics monoplane – a $300,000 beauty, only slightly damaged in the flood that a month earlier had destroyed my home and business. I’d completed the repairs and had some top-paying air shows scheduled to help my wife and me recoup our losses.I finished my preflight inspection and hopped into the cockpit. The sky had never seemed bluer, the hum of the engine as I took off, never sweeter. Flying put me back in control – the way I hadn't been since the Guadalupe River went on its recent rampage.
Emily and I had built our dream house on the banks of that normally placid stream. A three-story Mediterranean-style villa. Boat, too, boat house…why not? We had no kids yet and – still in my early thirties – I was CEO of 39car dealerships. Doing so well, in fact, that I had recently left that job and launched out on my own as a dealership consultant, operating out of our home. Emily worked with me and the company really took off fast.
That is, until freak rains turned the Guadalupe into a raging torrent. Water waist-deep on our second floor, everything ruined – not only the house, but all my files and computerized records. I spun the plane into my first practice roll. Up here I still called the shots. I loved everything about aerobatics, including the company of fellow independent souls. You get to meet great people, I thought as I pulled the plane out of a spiraling ascent. Like John Parsons, a respected periodontist in San Antonio, a guy I never would have met otherwise. He was a lot older than I was, religious fellow, too. I had never had any use for that kind of thing – I’d always gone it alone. Still, John was all right and I was sorry I hadn't seen him as much since he was diagnosed with cancer.I headed into an upside-down half outside loop with a two-point roll followed by a snap roll. Sheer exhilaration surged through me as I shot skyward.What was that? A damp and acrid fluid soaked my arms and chest. Fuel! Ruptured fuel tank!As I righted the plane, the cockpit filled with flames. Beating at my burning clothes with one hand, I switched off fuel, mags, master switch, and dropped into a nosedive. If the wind doesn't put this out fast I’ll be too low to jump!
Plunging, I opened the canopy and released the seat belts. Groping for the D-ring on my parachute, I ejected at 400 feet. Where’s that ring? The Velcro that should have held it to my chest had burned away. I was free-falling.
Then my fingers closed on the ripcord. I yanked it and felt my body hoisted upward. The ground quickly closed in, knocking the wind out of me.
I tugged off the melted mass that had been my goggles and looked down. The fire was out, but my arms were absolutely white. I’m burned bad.My lovely plane was a smoking tangle of metal. I wrestled out of my chute and started walking. I walked the whole way to the airfield, three-quarters of a mile, before the pain began.
I remember the helicopter trip, being wheeled into the burn unit at Brooke Army Medical Center. The medical team cut away what was left of my clothes. Then a mask closed over my nose and mouth and I sank into blackness.“Henry, can you hear me?”I opened my eyes to see two faces with surgical masks bent over me. I recognized Emily’s sweet voice and worried eyes. Then another voice. “Henry, I’m a doctor here. We did some emergency surgery.” There’d been extensive third-degree burns, he explained, making my body swell to nearly twice its normal size, and requiring incisions through the burned flesh from shoulder to wrist.That first pain-racked week at Brooke was a battle simply for survival. Once I was stabilized, the grafting began, using unburned skin from my back, thighs, and scalp. During two lengthy operations the grafts were secured with more than 3,000 staples through my flesh.Along with the physical suffering came a deeper pain. My home, my business, now my plane, too – gone. Hospital bills mounting by the day and without the plane, no way to get back on my feet even if I did get better.Here I was, the self-made guy, lying helpless in a hospital bed. How much more torture could I endure? The physical therapy to stretch the healing skin was agony, but the worst was the scrub baths – two a day. The nurses were merciless in their mission to rub every inch of my flesh raw. No screaming or pleading would sway them, and as the hour approached I’d actually cry in dread. Gritting my teeth as the brutal brush scoured away, I’d think, I don’t even have say-so over my own skin.“Henry, I know it hurts,” said the nurse who was working on me one day. “But, man, it’s gotta be done or infection will set in. You’ll have scar tissue till you can’t move. Come on. Just a little more.”The nurse lifted me back onto my bed. Each touch, even the breeze he stirred as he left, brought tears to my eyes.“Henry?” I turned my head as much as I could manage. It was John Parsons. Though I knew it had taken an effort to come see me during his own battle with cancer, all I could manage was a groan.“Don’t try to talk. Do you mind if I read you something?” He drew a chair up to the bed, taking a stack of handwritten 3x5 cards from his pocket. “Psalm thirty-one, seven. ‘I will be glad and rejoice in your love, for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul.”Not the Bible!John read through the bundle of cards, then put them on my tray table. “These are what my life and I live by, Henry. I hope they help you too.”Well, they won’t, I thought as he went out. I glowered at the bundle of cards, neatly tied together with a blue ribbon. Why leave them here? Like they’re actually going to do me any good.Still any visitor was a break from the remorseless hospital routine, and Emily couldn't be with me every minute. So I was glad when John showed up again the next day – just hoped he wasn't going to read those cards again. He did, though, every single one of them.John came back the next day. And the next, and the next – even though Emily told me he was undergoing painful treatments himself. He came back, and he read those verses. “Psalm forty-six, one. ‘God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.’”Yeah, sure. How’s God going to help? Only someone who’s been in pain this bad can know what it’s like.Someone who knows pain…Suddenly I found myself thinking of a cross I had seen once outside a church. A man with nails in his hands. In his feet.If Jesus was God, like John believed, why then, God did know.It was all that I could think about as the brush went to work. Why would anyone deliberately go through pain? I wondered. Unless…I thought about what I would do for Emily – or she, for me. Unless it was for someone he cared about an awful lot.As John stood up to leave my room one day, I heard myself say, “Don’t stop just yet!”John sat back down. “Philippians four, thirteen,” he read. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’”My scrub time that evening arrived all too soon. As the brush tore away at my raw flesh I mouthed the words from Philippians. I can do all things through Christ…The nurse went after my tender wounds with the same vigor. Yet I had the awesome feeling that now I wasn't going through this suffering alone. Something – someone – was making a difference. Someone was there, actually there in the room with me.I started going over the verses on those cards. When John wasn't reading the verses to me, I repeated them to myself. Until they became a living, minute-by-minute reality. An ever-present help.After a month in the hospital I was released to continue my recovery at our temporary home with Emily’s mother. With me came a whole new orientation. I, the self-reliant guy, was learning another kind of reliance.Reliance on God. Reliance on other people, Emily first of all. She not only had to wash and bandage my burns, but dress me too. It was a long time before I could straighten my arms. Our bills continued to mount. And yet I sensed Christ going through these struggles with me too. I plunged into reading the Bible with the same sense of adventure I’d brought to flying.What had made me think that I’d ever gone it alone? I wondered. Life, health, the very air I breathed – all of it was a gift! When clients I had not gone to see in months learned of our situation and sent my regular fees anyhow, I accepted, grateful. When I was able to travel and a friend offered to fly me on my business rounds, I accepted his help, too. Leaning on others became the most natural thing in the world once I learned to lean on God. What I had once thought of as weakness became my strength.Three years have passed. Our house is repaired, our business up and running, I’m flying aerobatics again and – the best gift of all – last July, little Henry Coffeen IV joined our family.
Today I can hide the scarring except on my hands. I’m not sorry it shows. It’s a reminder of other hands with scars on them. “I will be glad and rejoice in your love,” John read to me when I could see nothing to rejoice about. When we take our hands off the controls, I know now, stronger ones take over. Hands that belong to the one who loves us so much he suffers with us. For us.