For The Ones Who Stay: A Tribute to the People Who Show Up When It Matters Most

By Cindy Finch

The crash cart slammed through the doors. A dozen people stormed my hospital room. I was drowning in my own body—choking on green fluid, strapped to a BiPAP machine, panicking from the inside out—while not a single doctor looked me in the eye.

Only one person did. Nurse Stacey.

She grabbed my face, sobbed with me, and stayed close while I gagged and seized and convulsed. Everyone else watched the monitors. She saw me.

That’s a force multiplier.

In military terms, a force multiplier is something that makes a mission more effective without sending in more troops. Think: a helicopter extracting wounded soldiers. Or a refueling plane midair so no one has to stop flying.

In real life, force multipliers don’t just keep things going—they keep you going.

They are the breath between breaths. The laughter in sterile rooms. The hand you didn’t know you needed until it pulled you back.

They’re the ones who come low and slow, right into the fire.

How to Be a Force Multiplier When Someone’s World is Burning

1. Be the Human in the Room

Ten days at UCLA. No answers. Hospice was already being discussed. I was barely hanging on.

A bedside procedure went wrong. A doctor punctured my lung trying to drain fluid, and suddenly I was imploding. I started vomiting green. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t scream.

They strapped a BiPAP machine to my face, clamping it over my mouth and nose like a plastic muzzle. It blasted air into me whether I was ready or not. Imagine trying to vomit while being forced to inhale. It’s like drowning with a leaf blower shoved in your face.

Dozens of professionals. Monitors blaring. Orders flying.

No one talked to me. No one even looked at me.

Except Nurse Stacey.

She knelt next to the bed. Took my face in her hands. Got soaked in all the mess. And stayed.

Force multipliers don’t run from the wreckage. They enter it.

This is what love looks like in the ER at midnight.

2. See What’s True. Name What’s Strong.

My pastor Joe Boyd came over when we were at our lowest. No sermons. No scriptures. Just Joe, sitting on the floor with us, soaking in the silence.

Then he stood, looked at Darin, and said, “She’ll be okay. She has the gift of faith.”

He didn’t mean I’d be healed. He meant he saw something inside me I hadn’t seen yet. And that one line gave me a reason to hold on.

Name the strength before they feel it. That’s what anchors someone in a storm.

One sentence can be a rope.

3. Trust Them to Hear God Themselves

Pastor Ron Vietti came into my hospital room and asked one question: “So... is it your time to die or not?”

I blinked through the fog. “It’s not.”

“Great,” he said. “Then let’s live.”

No monologue. No checklist. Just the audacity to believe that I might know the answer.

Let the suffering speak. Don’t speak for them.

Sometimes faith is just the courage to decide.

4. Help the Ones Holding the Line

Pastor Kevin Odor found my parents in a hospital lobby—drained, scared, cracked open from worry. He prayed with them, encouraged them, filled their tanks so they could keep showing up for me.

Good leaders don’t just tend the sick. They tend the ones doing the caregiving.

Supporting the circle is how you keep someone standing.

5. Pay Attention. Act Without Being Asked.

Doug Loman handed us a fat check—unprompted, unannounced. “God told us to,” he said.

That church fed us, prayed with us, called us across state lines. They held the rope when we were too weak to tie the knot.

Force multipliers don’t wait for the ask. They notice, and they move.

Real generosity sees what you never say out loud.

6. Mirror the Story Back

Andy and Christy Cass co-parented our kids when we couldn’t. Later, Andy filmed our story. Our kids showed that video to their friends as a way to say, “Here. This is what we’ve lived.”

That one act gave us language. Gave us dignity.

When someone’s gone silent from pain, lend them your voice.

Telling the truth can be its own form of rescue.

7. Name the Turning Point

Dr. Janice Swanson once looked at me and said, “So you’ve decided to live. Your husband will be so relieved.”

I hadn’t realized I’d made that decision. But she had.

That moment marked the end of bracing for death—and the beginning of returning to life.

Sometimes all someone needs is for you to name the shift.

Hope doesn’t arrive all at once. Sometimes it needs to be named.

8. Say the Thing That Hurts. Stay Anyway.

Lori Jean Glass told me the truth: “You’re bleeding on your husband from wounds he didn’t cause.”

I wanted to push back. I wanted her to be wrong. But she wasn’t. And she stayed long enough to walk me through it.

Real leaders don’t just name the wound. They help you stitch it up.

Healing begins when someone calls it what it is.

What NOT to Do (Please. For the Love.)

Don’t share your appendix story. My body’s shutting down. Your kid’s tummy ache is not the moment.

Don’t bring shame. A woman once brought a Bible-coded sin chart to my hospital bed. She said she knew what I’d done wrong. Nope.

Don’t oversimplify. A preacher once yelled, “STOP GETTING DIVORCED!” from the pulpit. As if that helps anyone. Show us how.

Don’t try to fix it. Just stay in it.

What to Say Instead (And What It Meant to Me):

• “We love you.” My mother-in-law came for a weekend and stayed nine months. Three kids under six. No ask, no hesitation—just rescue.

• “We’ve got dinner covered.” A friend organized six months of three meals a week. That’s right—six.

• “What’s been the hardest part?” Almost no one asked. No one asked Darin at all.

• “Here’s a blanket. Just because.” One arrived in the mail with no note. Still warms me.

• “I brought a dumb joke. Want it?” My sister-in-law smuggled in seven candy bars and flashed them from her jacket like contraband. We laughed for four straight hours.

• “You don’t have to do this alone.” Darin came to my hospital bed three times a day—for weeks. Before work. At lunch. After hours. Just to lie beside me.

Or wear the gown. One friend pulled a clean blue hospital gown over her jeans before visiting me. Just to say, “You’re not alone in this.” I smiled for the first time in days.

That’s what force multipliers do. They bring light into rooms where light shouldn’t reach.

A Final Thought…

Maybe you’ve never stood beside a bed like mine. But you’ve seen someone suffer. You’ve felt helpless. You’ve wanted to make it better.

This is your map.

Be the one who stays.
Be the casserole. Be the hand on the back. Be the dumb joke. Be the presence in the wreckage.

Don’t fix it. Don’t flee. Just stay.

May you be the one who shows up.
May you be the one who holds the line.
May your presence be the miracle.
And when the pain gets loud—may you still stay.

With love and reverence,
—Cindy