When you look at this picture above, what do you feel inside? Every time I see a hospital bed it brings on feelings of being sullen, heavy-hearted, despair, cold, isolated, dreary, panicky, nervousness, apprehension, and sometimes a feeling of being powerless, and the list goes on...... I do not have fond memories of the hospital. I have spent many days and nights at hospitals and doctor's offices healing my children back to health. I know it is a place of healing and that is a "good thing" but my own personal experiences are of fear. Even though I have had personal joy in hospital, for example..giving birth to 4 children, I still get a feeling of gloom.
I call this the "second miracle" because I believe it was the second miracle in the life of my first child.
The story goes like this...... My husband was out of town and anyone that knows me well enough knows that when he is gone it doesn't rain or pour at my house, it floods..... In other words, if it can go wrong, it will and whatever is about ready to break, "it" waits patiently until my husband walks out the door and then things start falling apart. People used to say I should appreciate my husband and his husbandry skills, I would just say, "I do appreciate him but more importantly I appreciate things when working properly." I used to have apprehension when he would leave but now I am numb to the "breakin and the fixin" and I just say "bring it on".
I didn't know that my child would "break" or get sick enough that she would have to be hospitalized when my husband was gone. She was real sick. She had asthma and she was young. She was young enough that she really didn't speak in complete sentences yet. Her knowledge of the world was her mom and dad that loved her and her bedroom filled with her toys. That was her world. We did not live near family and the town was new to us. We had no support system. It was just the three of us.
Our daughter loved books. We would make up our own words when flipping through the pictures of the books because she could not sit still long enough for me to read all the words. We would read many bible stories. We called Jesus by his name, Mother Mary by Jesus' mommy, and the Guardian Angels were called people with wings that watch over us. Our stories were simple but they were stories that we visited many nights before she would go to bed as part of her night time prayers.
She just couldn't catch her breath and the wheezing kept going on. As a parent I would second guess myself. Sometimes I would take her into the doctor's office only to be told she was fine and then the minute I didn't take her in she would be really sick. It was hard to tell with her because her condition could take a turn for the worse very quickly. This time however, I knew she was sick. The breathing was labored and she just wasn't smiling anymore. My instincts took over and we were at the door steps of the hospital. My husband was out of town. I was lonely and scared. I was a new mother with very little experience.
She was admitted. The nurses put her in a zipped up tent that went all around her and the bed. She was on the inside looking out and I on the out looking in at her. We were used to holding one another. There just wasn't room for the both of us and I definitely didn't need to be medicated as well so I remained outside the tent of the bed. This was scary for my little girl. She cried and cried.
12 hours had passed by and she was being managed very well by the nursing staff. She had her eyes fixated on me and she would cry trying to get outside the tent. It just wasn't the same and she knew it but she would be calm on and off. In her calm moments I would try to step out of the hospital room for a break and the crying would begin again. I knew I needed a break, a little food, a little drink. The nurses stepped up to help and told me to get some fresh air. I did.
As I walked out of the room the screaming and crying intensified. I prayed that it would cease and she would be at peace. I heard her as I turned the corner of the long hallway and entered the elevator. I started crying too and wondering why I had to do this all alone. As I look back, was I really all alone? At that moment I felt so isolated and helpless that my sobs were probably bigger that hers. I believe it is true that when your children are hurting you feel their pain too.
I got fresh air and I paced nervously and questioned why I was being so selfish by leaving her. The guilt weighed heavily on my heart. She was my child and she needed me and here I was abandoning her by getting fresh air. The guilt out weighed my need to breath in the air and relax and so I immediately headed back to the room.
Upon arriving on her floor there was a stillness, a quiet that I had not heard on her floor before, after all it was a pediatric floor. I thought maybe I was on the wrong floor. I went back to the elevator and checked the number of the floor. I was right, I was on the right floor.
I walked past the nurses station and all the nurses looked at me and smiled. They all had an angelic-like look about them.
As I entered my daughters room she was sitting there looking at her book. She looked up at me and said "hi mommy" as she smiled. I hugged her and told her I was sorry for leaving her and that I was glad she wasn't crying any longer. At that moment she started talking like she was 15 years old. Her sentences were complete and she pronounced words that she had never pronounced before.
She said "Mommy, don't worry. Jesus, Mother Mary and the Guardian Angels said I would be just fine". She spoke with such confidence and eloquence that it took me a moment to remember what I had said to her to get such a intellectual response from her. She repeated it once again "Mommy, I said don't worry! Jesus, Mother Mary and the Guardian Angels said I would be just fine" and she then continued looking at her book.
What two year old spoke like that? Certainly not my two year old and she certainly didn't know that the people with wings were called Guardian Angels or Jesus' mommy was called Mother Mary. We used simple words with simple meanings. We were simple in our faith and she was only about two years old.
I believe that day that Jesus, Mother Mary and the Guardian Angels visited my daughter in the hospital room. They calmed and comforted her and more importantly comforted me. I looked around the room waiting for them to appear again. I had my blinders on because they were already there holding us both. We are their children and they felt our pain that day and they came to comfort us.
For that short period of time that my child was in the hospital, my belief was once again strengthened. This was my own personal journey on that road to Emmaus like the disciples. My eyes were blinded of His presence. Later, much later, did I fully understand what really happened. He loves the little ones and the big ones too and he is always healing, comforting and loving us each day.
Thank You Jesus, Mother Mary and the Guardian Angels for holding my little one. Amen
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