YAPHANK, NY — When Timothy Heaton worked in Lower Manhattan, he prayed in the historic Chapel of All Saints at Trinity Church.
It stands out as a position where President George Washington once knelt down, and later became known as the site where the frame of the late FDNY chaplain, the father, was found. Mychal Judge placed on the altar after his death while administering the last rites to a dying firefighter.
Heaton attributes his prayers to the holy place for helping him with a Suffolk County correctional officer 25 years ago. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that he visited the chapel once in a dream last year.
In the bright dream, he floated and looked at the church from the most sensitive ceiling on the rafters and climbed onto a giant cross.
“It seems crazy,” he said, adding that the brain is “a thing. “
Remember everything clearly. There were chairs and also a sarcophagus with a priest.
While dreaming, Heaton was in a medically induced coma at Stony Brook University Hospital, where he struggled to break free from the fatal clutches of COVID-19.
I was taking a lot of medicine at the time.
“I’m not crazy, my oxygen thing has fallen off,” he said with a smile.
His center stopped 3 times and the hospital kept asking his wife of 35 years, Connie, to signal a DNR order, but she refused.
A Roman Catholic priest called to perform the ritual of the last rites to prepare his soul for access to heaven, however, after that, Heaton miraculously returned from the breaking point of death.
“I just got discharged,” he said.
And he attributes this miracle to prayer.
Sometimes he wonders if his life is now too much to be real.
“I enjoy every moment of life. I wonder if I’m here,” adding, “It’s a glorious life. “
Heaton, who was in very good health, contracted the virus just before a planned retirement after 25 years in the sheriff’s office, running in Yaphank and Riverhead jails as a correctional officer. He is believed to have contracted the virus while running at Riverhead prison, where there was an outbreak among inmates and prison officials despite a “conscientious” mask protocol, he said.
The virus hit Heaton very quickly, and when he got to the other side, there were plenty of things to do. During his time on the ventilator, he became emaciated and his muscles weakened to the point that he could simply not move his legs or lift his finger when he woke up.
It’s not that he didn’t appreciate everything he had before, but now he’s doing it even more.
“The bottom line is that when you’re so close to the limit, you enjoy everything,” he said.
One thing Heaton can do is the prayer chain, with thousands of other people in the United States praying for him. At Brook, he even won visits from devout leaders of other religions.
“Prayer is real,” he said.
He knows. In your recovery, all you can do is pray.
His number one is St. Jude, patron saint of lost reasons or the impossible.
It’s something he can’t think about yet. He doesn’t think his recovery has happened.
The Medford resident spent months in a room.
“I was in a room where I could only see the Stony Brook towers, and that’s all I saw. Normally, what I would have to do is see the sky and feel the sun on my skin,” he said.
Heaton realizes everyone has problems with his family, but suggested they “just pray,” he said, adding, “No one is perfect. I’m not perfect. No one is. But it works. I can’t”. . . I don’t know what else to say. “
He came out of the war for his life with scars all over his body from various tubes that were placed inside his body to help him breathe and eat, crediting Stony Brook’s staff with the Herculean efforts they made to see him come out of his illness. From Stony Brook, he was transferred to the St. Charles rehabilitation center, where he finished a rigorous physical therapy program that helped him get back on track.
When he left the hospital in March 2022, he could only walk about a hundred steps with a walker and needed a wheelchair for his big outing, where he celebrated with dozens of friends and supporters.
After that, he went to receive physical treatment at Professional Care in Patchogue.
Almost a year later, he recently visited Freedom Towers in Manhattan and visited nearby Trinity Church, but unfortunately was unable to enter All Saints Chapel due to renovations. He also visited New York City Highline, watching all the other faces that greeted him.
As he walked, the sight made him think that God could have created them all.
“You know, everybody’s like a snowflake,” Heaton said.
He planned to retire just after September 2021 when he overcame the virus.
Heaton began to feel “a little strange,” but that feeling later turned into an illness. He remembers asking his wife if she could shower and shave before going to the emergency room. When he arrived, he told her that his lungs were invaded by the virus. and that he had had an embolism.
But now he sees that he has to convey his message about prayer.
About a month ago, he wrote a letter to the wife of his old friend, New York Deputy Police Chief James Molloy, to let her know she had dreamed of him. The deceased police officer died of brain cancer similar to Sept. 11, 2017.
Heaton dreamed that he and his boyfriend were 15 again. Molloy picked him up from his ship, “Puddle Jumper” in Great South Bay. Both waterskied, fished and fished all day.
“We’re having a moment,” he said. And then, suddenly, he said, “I have to take you back to the dock. My father said I have to take you back to the dock. And I said, “Why? We have a full tank of gas. “But he says, ‘No, well, I’ll be back. ‘ So he took me to the dock. “
On Thursday, Heaton stood up, accepted his retirement shield and went on his last strike, a classic police rite honoring retirees, at Yaphank prison.
She came out of COVID-19, was discharged from the hospital and officially retired. He had his health, his family circle, and his prayers with him.
“I’ve believed in God, but never like this,” he said. Even in your non-public life, no matter where you are, whether it’s in a cardboard box on Broadway or in a mansion, I just need to close my eyes and pray and God will listen. It turns out that it has absolutely replaced my view of everything. “
For him and his family, this year has been a year, finally.
“I’m like Ebenezer Scrooge at Christmas: nothing bothers me anymore,” he said.
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