11/11/2025
BE A GIDEON!
"For three years, 68-year-old Gideon sat in the same plastic chair at County General Hospital. Every Tuesday and Thursday. 2 PM sharp.
He wasn't sick.
"You waiting for someone?" a nurse finally asked.
Gideon shook his head. "Just.... keeping folks company."
It started the day his daughter Emma finished chemo. While she slept, Gideon wandered the oncology waiting room. He saw a young father, maybe 30, staring at his phone. Shaking. Silent tears rolling down.
Gideon sat beside him. Said nothing. Just sat.
After ten minutes, the man whispered, "My wife's in there. Stage four. We have a two-year-old."
Gideon nodded. Still didn't speak. Just stayed.
When the man left an hour later, he gripped Gideon's shoulder. "Thank you for.... for just being here."
Emma recovered. But Gideon kept coming back.
He'd arrive with a thermos of coffee and yesterday's crossword puzzle. Sometimes he'd sit with terrified teenagers getting test results. Other times, elderly folks whose children lived too far away. He never asked questions. Never offered advice. Just presence.
"You're wasting your time," his son said. "These people are strangers."
But Gideon remembered that father's face. The relief of not being alone.
Last month, a woman in her fifties sat down, clutching appointment papers. Her hands wouldn't stop trembling. Gideon slid his crossword toward her. "Stuck on 17 across," he said quietly.
She stared at it. Then picked up his pencil.
They worked the puzzle in silence. When her name was called, she stood up slowly. "I have to go in alone," she said. "My sister couldn't get off work. I was so scared to do this by myself."
"You're not by yourself," Gideon said. "I'll be right here when you come out."
Two hours later, she emerged, eyes red. But she was smiling. "Benign," she choked out. "It's benign."
Gideon stood up and she hugged him hard. A stranger hugging a stranger.
Word spread quietly. Families started asking for "the man in the chair." Nurses told new patients, "If you're alone, Gideon will sit with you."
Then Gideon's own tests came back wrong. Lung disease. Advanced.
"I can't go back," he told Emma, oxygen tubes in his nose.
But on Tuesday, 2 PM, there he was. Slower now. Breathing harder. Still there.
A teenage girl sat down beside him this time. Cancer survivor, five years clean. "You sat with my mom," she said. "When I was sick. When she had nobody."
She opened a thermos. "Brought coffee. And I'm really bad at crosswords, so… you'll have to help."
Now there are four chairs. Gideon still comes when he can. But on days he can't, others fill his seat. A retired firefighter. A grocery store clerk. Emma.
They don't fix anything. Don't solve problems.
They just sit.
Because sometimes, that's everything.”
Let this story reach more hearts....
