Thanksgiving Is Heartfelt for Recent Patient

As the sun went down, Tim Smith stopped working for a minute to watch it. He was on a hillside above Fillmore, digging holes for concrete piers that would hold up a trellis. His back ached, but he was struck by the cool air and the silence and the darkness spreading across the valley.

Back home, the pain got worse. Smith likes to roll around on the floor with his three kids--a giant at 6 feet 9 cavorting with tykes from 2 to 7--but he couldn’t do much rolling. He had them walk gingerly on his back, but it didn’t help.

“Twenty years in construction,” he thought. “This is what I get for 20 years in construction.”

For a day, he stayed in bed.

The next day, his left leg went numb. He had to hobble around as he checked out a downtown paving job for the city of Fillmore, which employs him part time as a public works inspector.

As he sat in his truck compiling his notes, he slumped over the wheel. An unspeakable pain stabbed at his chest. He dragged himself through the back door of a hardware store; before the afternoon ended, he was drugged, his chest was shaved, and he was splayed open on an operating table before surgeons who were hard-pressed to account for his survival.

Three weeks later, Smith is looking forward to Thursday’s Thanksgiving feed.

“Only a small plate,” he said. “It’ll be a delicacy.”

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At 43, Smith has more to be grateful about than those of us who will mumble our routine thanks for friendsfamilygoodhealth. Above everything else, he has a second chance.

“I’m here,” he said, “and it’s a miracle. They do happen.”

At Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura, Smith’s surgery took six hours. His aorta had torn, and his heart was bursting with blood. Doctors later told him that many people in similar shape don’t make it. Surveying Smith’s ravaged chest cavity, one of them said: “Someone must be praying for this guy.”

Smith’s only sin might be a bad gene. He had never heard of Marfan syndrome, but doctors theorize that he might be a textbook example of it. It’s an inherited condition that weakens connective tissues and causes heart problems. Extreme tallness is a symptom. Smith’s brother--who was 6 feet 5--died of a heart attack at 38.

Smith spent 10 days at the hospital, recovering from a double bypass and installation of a synthetic heart valve. A return trip for a procedure to stem an infection lasted nearly a week.

Meanwhile, his friends back in Fillmore were busy.

Fellow members of the Fillmore Foursquare Church made dinner every night for Smith’s wife, Cecilia, and their kids.

They prayed for Smith, who is deeply religious, and put the word out to church members elsewhere.

Around the house, the little things that keep life in order somehow got done.

The lawn got mowed. The water jugs got filled. The firewood got cut and neatly stacked.

“I was amazed,” said Cecilia, who schools the kids at home. “People I hardly knew were coming up to me on the street asking if there was anything they could do.”

Smith’s boss at the city promised him that his job would be there for him when he’s able to work again. Doctors figure that might be a few months down the road.

Until then, his church started a fund for him at the local branch of Santa Barbara Bank and Trust. Money has come in from the people who have hired him to build decks and hang doors, from former colleagues at the Fillmore schools, where he was maintenance director, from good-hearted acquaintances who have seen him around town.

I asked Smith if he had ever seen “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“It’s a wonderful movie,” he said. For a flicker of a second, his long, lean face took on a Jimmy Stewart cast.

“The support for me and my family has been overwhelming,” he said. “I’m just touched.”

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Thursday, the Smiths might have a quiet dinner at home. Cecilia has a terrible cold. Tim wants to put in time snuggling with his kids and watching TV with them. He returned from the hospital only last night; it had been days since he’d heard Asher, the oldest, play his fiddle, and Ezra, the 6-year-old, play his drums.

On the other hand, he might go to a big gathering at his sister’s house and raise a glass of champagne and tell why, on this particular Thanksgiving, he’s particularly thankful.

“I don’t know if I can do it without breaking into tears,” he said. “I’ll just be bawling.”

I told him he wouldn’t be the only one.

Anyone who has ever had a close call will understand just how he feels. Life is a feast of second chances, and for that we should all give thanks.

Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or by e-mail at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.