Monday, I began a Christmas story that came from my book Bryson City Seasons. Part 2 was posted Wednesday.

Here’s the last of three parts. I hope it’s been a Christmas blessing for you and yours:

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“Evan, I know God wants to have a relationship with you. My understanding of the Bible is that it tells us that God loves each of us. Actually, he loves us so much that he sent his only Son, Jesus, not just to be born in a manger but to live a perfect life for us as an example and then to die a torturous death for us—for all of our wrongdoing. Evan, if you’re willing to believe that, God’s willing to begin that relationship with you—today—but only if you want to.”
Evan looked out the window of the ICU. The daylight was just starting. For just a moment, I was concerned he might have been upset, but instead he turned back to me and whispered, “It would be a good day to start.”
I was quiet. The tears began to flow down his face, and he sniffled. I reached out and took his hand.
He gave my hand a squeeze and then looked back at me. “Doc, I’ve done a lot of wrong things. Guess you thumpers would call me a pretty bad sinner, huh?” He smiled as he wiped his tears with his free hand.
I smiled back at him. “Evan, that puts you and me in the same exact crowd.”
He cocked his head and looked at me. “Dr. Larimore, are you …? Are you like me?”
“I am.”
“You are?” he asked.
“Yes, but let me explain. The Bible explains that the sexually immoral and idolaters and adulterers and homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God. But, Evan, it also says in the same verse that the greedy and slanderers and swindlers won’t either.”
Evan was quiet in his thoughts, so I continued. “You’re a homosexual. And I’m greedy and a slanderer. I’ve been far more selfish than I should have been, and I’m certainly guilty of gossiping more than I should. So, according to the Bible, you and I are in the same exact crowd.”
Evan smiled and squeezed my hand. I felt an acute sense that God was gently leading my thoughts and words.
“Evan, the Bible describes many names for Jesus. My favorite is that he was known as a friend of sinners. All he requires from us, if we want to have a personal relationship with him—if we want to be his friend—is for us simply to admit that we’ve missed the mark, that we’ve sinned and done wrong.”
“I guess I would qualify.”
“Me too, Evan.” I paused to let him think for a moment.
“I think I’d like to be his friend. That would be nice—especially on Christmas Day,” Evan whispered between labored breaths. “How do I start?”
Dear Lord, I thought, what do I say now?
Then I had an over-shadowing and extremely comforting sense that God had been at work in Evan’s life for a long time.
Evan’s spiritual journey and awakening had, in point of fact, started long before today. I wasn’t exactly sure who had been involved in his life up to this point, but I was sure God now had a small part for me to play in Evan’s story.
“Actually, Evan, it’s pretty easy. You just talk to God—what we thumpers call prayer.”
We smiled, and I continued. “Just let God know you’re ready—invite him into a relationship with you, into your heart, and he’ll come in. First you have to realize that you’ve done wrong. Then you have to be willing to trust him with your life and your choices.”
Evan nodded and closed his eyes. “Lord,” he whispered, “I begin.”
It was the shortest and sweetest prayer I had ever heard.
He looked up at me and smiled.
We were both silent—sitting together after a conversation we had begun as doctor and patient and con- cluded as spiritual brothers.
“Evan, the Bible says that when we admit to God our wrongdoing—just agree with him that we’ve missed the mark— he will instantly and eternally forgive our sins. And based on that forgiveness, he’s willing to become your friend and your Lord and to reserve a room for you in heaven.”
The tears were still flowing down his cheeks. He nodded.
“The Bible also says that when we receive Jesus, when we believe in his name, he gives us the right to become children of God, not like when we’re born physically but when we’re born spiritually—of God.”
Evan nodded, tears still running down his cheeks.
“So, my friend, if you’re a child of God and I’m a child of God, then what does that make us?”
He thought a moment and then smiled. “Brothers?” he whispered.
I smiled and nodded.
“I’ve never had a hug from a brother,” he said quietly.
I slowly pulled him up and felt his arms encircle my shoulders.
He was very, very weak, but his hug was very, very real. After we hugged, I eased him back down.
“Would you like to see a pastor today to talk a bit more about this?”
He smiled, nodded, and squeezed my hand.
We were quiet for a moment as I thought about our extraordinary encounter. I hadn’t been trained to incorporate spirituality into my medical practice, and despite my initial discomfort, my time with Evan had seemed so spontaneous and sincere. Once Evan gave me permission to share all of who I was as his physician, it had seemed natural.
“Evan, I need to go check that X-ray, okay?”
I went to the X-ray reading room, and on my way back to ICU, I saw one of the RTs running toward the unit. I walked quickly into ICU and arrived just in time to see Evan surrounded by nurses and in the process of being intubated by the RT.
“What happened?”
“He just had a respiratory arrest. BP has bottomed out. Bradycardia. Okay to get him on a ventilator?”
I nodded my assent and went to work.
But from there, things went downhill fairly quickly.
Evan’s pneumonia quickly evolved into ARDS—a severe form of respiratory disease that is very difficult to treat—and then he went into kidney and liver failure. He died late that afternoon.
The autopsy report confirmed the pneumonia but blamed it on a bacterium I’d never treated before—Pneumocystis carinii.
The report also confirmed multi-organ failure and a form of cancer—Kaposi’s sarcoma—but said the cancer was confined only to his skin.
I could only assume, with what I knew then, that this unusual infection had overwhelmed his immune system and caused his death.
I called Richard’s shop to give him the results, but the number had been disconnected.
I then called Richard’s home—but, once again, the number had been disconnected.
Ella Jo told me she heard that Richard had closed the shop soon after Evan’s death and left the area. I was never able to find him, but I wondered if he didn’t know, even then, that Evan’s death had in some way been related to their relationship.
For Evan had not died of cancer. Nor would such a mild bacterium have overwhelmed an intact immune system.
I now know he died of a disease that was then unnamed—HIV/AIDS.
So Evan was my first patient with this horrible disease.
But he was also the first patient with whom I shared my personal faith so forthrightly—and the first to so openly ask me to do so.
Looking back over a long career in family medicine, Evan’s case and his decision to give his life to Christ represented one of the high points.
But what his autopsy did not show, and could not show, was that Evan died a new man—spiritually.
He had become a friend of God. He had been born as a son of God on the day we celebrated the birth of the Son of God.
And his life truly began the morning of the day it ended.
I know I’ll see him again one day. I hope he’ll give me—his brother in the Lord—another hug.

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• Find Part One here.
• Find Part Two here.

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If you’d like to learn more about beginning a personal relationship with God, check out my blog on the topic here.

Also, here’s more information on the Bryson City series:

• Bryson City Tales: Stories of a Doctor’s First Year of Practice in the Smoky Mountains(read a chapter here)

• Bryson City Seasons: More Tales of a Doctors Practice in the Smoky Mountains(read a chapter here)
• Bryson City Secrets: Even More Tales of a Small-Town Doctor in the Smoky Mountains (read a chapter here)