It was about 2 or 3 in the morning when Dr. Keller finally approached my mother. Mama said Dr. Keller looked like he had lost a war. Everything in his body and in his words seemed as if he had given up. He sat in a chair across from Mama in the waiting room with his head hanging low, his hands clasped together, his elbows resting on his knees. He shook his head back and forth and then he looked long and hard at Mama.

Photo by: “Adriano”

“I don’t know what to do. “I’ve done everything I can. I just don’t know what else there is… I don’t know what is taking her! I can’t find it! I just don’t know…”

Everything about Dr. Keller at that moment indicated his surrender. And then he left Mama wondering if this was the end of me.

Photo by: Stephen Helms

After she relayed Dr. Keller’s numbing news to my relatives who were in the waiting room on their shift, calls were made, more prayers were said, and rosaries were being whispered on quivering lips as they prepared for the worst.

It was late at night and my extended family had taken turns to be present ’round the clock. I was rarely left alone. There was someone there at the hospital each night and day, for so many days. And every day they were on edge. Mama knew her siblings and other relatives each had families of their own to get back to. Many of them couldn’t come as often anymore. My illness was unpredictable, lasting what seemed to be an eternity with no improvement. She thought it was unfair to ask anyone to stay any longer. Those that were still there were weary. So, Mama finally sent them all home, reassuring everyone that she was awake and okay, and that she would continue to stay with me through the night. She sent my step-dad, Roger, home too, so he could relieve my 16 year old step-sister of her watch and be there for my younger siblings.

Finally, Mama was left alone in the waiting room with her own thoughts.

My mother is a nurse. She knows the terminology of every code, acronym, and medical jargon being discussed around her. She had a great talent for putting things in layman’s terms for my family and friends when they visited me and wanted to know what was going on. She had been keeping people updated for days and days.

Photo by: Carl M.

But that night, when she was alone, each time she heard them call out a code blue over the speakers, her heart skipped a beat and she would jump up to find out if it was her daughter needing a crash cart.

She began to chastise herself over the fact that she had sent everyone home on the darkest of nights, the night her daughter was a dweller on the threshold of life and death.

Photo by: Norma Desmond

Now, there was no one to lean on or to comfort her worst fears. In the wee hours of the morning, she found herself wandering numbly down one of the long corridors. In agony and unable to go on, she stopped, leaned against the wall, and literally beat her head against a door frame as she cried out in rage.

“How can you take her from me?! How can you take her?!”

Photo by: Mike Rosales

Mama managed to walk a few more steps, until she found herself alone in the waiting room at the other end of the corridor. She was emotionally and physically exhausted. The sleeping pill she had been given earlier by Dr. Keller was now taking effect. She found it hard to keep her eyes open. Laying on her back across a short, vinyl couch, she pleaded with God.

“If I could just know that You know what this is…. that this is not some evil thing trying to take her from us…. then I can let her go. If you mean for her to go with the Angels, then I can give her to you. But, if this is some evil, I WILL FIGHT IT! Oh God…. Can you please just tell me this? Help me know!”

Photo by: Mike Rosales

Then suddenly, Mama’s heart, wrenching with anger and fear, was laid soft by an ethereal presence of something she described as “out-of-this-world.” As she lay there motionless and silent in the stillness of that room, she experienced what she described as “a veil,” gently falling over her entire body.

Photo by: “Laura”

She felt it wash over her, blanketing her with an immediate feeling of comfort and peace. “It was as real as a piece of bridal veil material floating around me,” she tells to this day. “I saw it with my own eyes.”

It startled her at first, and she did not move. But then she began to marvel at how she began to feel very alert. Her senses were not dull. They were keen, and her eyes wide open. Then she asked herself, ‘Is this God? …Is this Jesus? …Is this good? …What is this?’

And, as she lay still, waiting for some answer, she sensed a voice saying,

At that moment, she knew without a doubt that “the veil” was Holy and good and not evil. It was a sign, an answer to her prayer. God had his hand on me, and whichever way this illness took me, Mama knew with conviction that God was at the helm. She believed that this veil was sent to bring her peace.

She lay there for a while and closed her eyes, allowing herself to be enfolded with the love and comfort this presence had brought her.

Photo by: “Maureen”

The first day Mama and I went to church, after I was released from the hospital, there in the scripture readings was a description of God’s Holy Spirit as “The Comforter.” It was then that she realized the presence in the waiting room that early morning, which she called “the veil,” was the “Holy Spirit,” the messenger of comfort and peace, and she sat in awe.

Posted by LaRonda on Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 at 6:37 pm.