Somewhere in Genesis, it says that God made Man in his own image. I have always wondered what that means. How are we the same as God? It can’t be that He has two eyes or two legs, because lots of other animals have all of that. The one defining thing that sets Man and humans apart is our ability to improve our existence. The life of an elephant is essentially the same as it was 100 years ago, but a human’s life is considerably more advanced.
This is a long introduction for a song that I wrote in the 80’s about Heaven’s Bank. We spend so much time making money that we don’t spend enough time thinking about how we can give back to future generations. That’s why we should be investing in Heaven’s Bank.
HEAVEN'S BANK
D C G
I dreamed I met the richest man in heaven
Em Am D
Compared to him, Howard Hughes was in poverty
G Em Am
And when I asked him how he had such treasures
C G D
He said it's from a simple policy
C G
He put it all in heaven's bank
Em Am
Nothing but the Lord to thank
C G D
Growing the interest day by day
C G
Invest it in the Lord my friend
Em Am
He'll be with you in the end
C G D
The richest man in heaven would say
D C G
To this earth, he was born a simple man
Em Am D
A love for his God and his Son
G Em Am
And when he left this world, he didn't leave us much
C G D
But in heaven, his riches had been won
C G
He put it all in heaven's bank
Em Am
Nothing but the Lord to thank
C G D
Growing the interest day by day
C G
Invest it in the Lord my friend
Em Am
He'll be with you in the end
C G D
The richest man in heaven would say
I’ve answered the question and told the story so many times. What happened in São Paulo? I finally broke down and decided to write a photo blog of perhaps one of the strangest adventures of my life. It all started with my bachelor party, which in Portuguese, translates to Goodbye to Singleness. After 46 years of being single, I sure went out with a bang. I was really touched by all the people that visited me in the hospital.
It is certainly a story I've had tell many times - How I Ended Up In A Hospital in São Paulo. So here goes.
I was to be married to Solange in August 2006, and so I setup my bachelor party in São Paulo with a few friends in July 2006. The partners in crime were Key (Kyung Sun), Austin Young, Augusto, and Thomas, my doctor friend from Las Vegas.
I took a long run around Lagoa the night before because I knew that I would not be getting much exercise during my 3 day bachelor party. The next day, Solange was scheduled to go travel to her mother's place in Goânia, but she had some problems with her plane reservations. Long story short, I spent most of the following morning, running around Rio straightening her plane reservations. I barely had time to catch my flight to São Paulo.
When I finally got to São Paulo, I ran to a final conference call, and then we were off the races going to many of the favorite night spots in São Paulo. Note: by this time, I had not eaten for more than 24 hours. I was wired, and I decided to drink water.
It all hit at once, and I went into convulsions. My ailment is called hyponatremia. Since I had a doctor with me, they took me to the hospital, and treated me for a lack of sodium in my system. My friends went home, and thought I would be fine.
The next day they came to find me in a far worse situation. I was in a coma. Two days later , when I finally snapped out of it, I had a broken arm, amnesia, pneumonia, and I could not talk. Worse yet, no one knew what had happened. There was nothing in the hospital records nothing. Still to this day, I still don't know what happened.
My friends freaked and took me to another much more expensive hospital. It is there where they gave me two blood transfusions, and they mended my arm with five screws and two plates. Then my friends finally called Solange who had become a non stop crying machine.
My brother and my mother came down to see me in São Paulo. Then my friend William Wang came down on business and also visited me at the hospital. He is the one that snapped this photo.
All's well that ends well. I went back briefly to the US and soon returned to Brazil to marry Solange. She then became pregnant, and as of this writing, we are very happily married.
Of course, the rest is history. I bought a condominium, got married to a wonderful Brazilian, and now we have a beautiful baby boy. Wow. Don’t Take Away My Heaven.
I then ripped the DVD and put it into Windows Movie Maker along with scans from her prior sonograms. Then put it to Paul Anka’s Having My Baby. I think it turned out great!