ANGELS AMONG US

Written by Luz Leigh – 21 July 2008

 

The year was 1978.  We were a happy family; working hard to make a living, but enjoying life.  Then it happened.  On a beautiful Sunday afternoon Avon and I were watching a football game.  The children had been allowed to walk over to the bazaar at the Catholic Church.  I was not exactly happy with the situation, but he assured me they would be safe.  Lots of our friends would be there to keep an eye on them.

            Not long after the children left the house, Jack said words that struck terror in my heart.  “I think you need to get me to the hospital.”   This from a man who looked to be in good health, who almost had to be dragged to see a doctor.  I made a couple of phone calls to alert his family and one to a friend, asking her to go get our children and keep them until I could return.

His sister, who lived only minutes away, came to our home as soon as I called her.   I did not wait for an ambulance, but drove like the wind to the nearest hospital.  Jack was immediately seen by a doctor who just happened to be at the hospital, treating a patient across the emergency room from the gurney on which Avon lay.  The Lord was with us that day; shortly after arriving at the ER, Jack suffered a heart attack.  

            The next day our family physician had returned from vacation and took over the case.  I asked him shouldn’t Jack have been sent to the medical center in Houston, to which our doctor replied, “No.  The treatment he is receiving here is as good as he would get there.  Don’t worry.”  Don’t worry?  But I understood that he was trying to calm my fears.

            For several days and nights I remained by Jack’s side, except for an occasional trip home for a bath, a change of clothes and to hug our little ones.  They were so concerned about their daddy so I had to be brave for them, assuring them he would be alright.  The emotional strain was beginning to take a toll on me, not to mention how tired I was physically.

            Jack’s room was at the end of the hallway where the heart patients were kept; quiet area with nurses close by.  Across the hall was an elderly man who had few visitors.  On the same side of the hall  was a man whom we did not know, but who had lots of family in and out all the time to care for him.  It was a black family from a nearby town is all I knew about them.

            One day when I really needed to be alone to pray (and to cry which I never let Jack see me do; praying was fine, crying was a no-no), I sat alone on the top step of the stairwell which was adjacent to his room.   That was my sanctuary to which I went about once a day.   As the prayers were being lifted and the tears were falling like rain, I became aware of a lady standing beside me, with her hand on my shoulder.   It startled me because I had not heard the door behind me or the door at the bottom of the stairwell open.  I looked up into the most gentle face I had ever seen, although a complete stranger to me.

            She said “Honey, don’t worry about your husband.  He’s gonna be ok.”   Before I could say anything she turned and I saw the door to the hallway open.  A peace came over me; I didn’t know what was happening, but I knew I was to stop worrying.  She was the second person to say those words to me.  I had not heeded our doctor’s admonition, “don’t worry”.

            For a few minutes I sat there, thinking about what had just happened.  You see, this was before I understood about angels among us in human form.  I wiped my face, put on my best smile and left the stairwell.  I went in search of the lady who gave me those kind words.   I wanted to thank her.   Outside the door of the black patient’s room, two of his relatives were seated.  I asked if one of the people who was seated there had they seen the lady who had just entered from the stairwell?  I assumed she had come to visit that patient.  Neither of the women had seen anyone in the hallway, except me.  Both said they noticed when I left Jack’s room, went into the stairwell and then returned.  I thought well maybe they had stepped inside the room and missed seeing the lady.

            There was a chart nurse at the nurse’s station just a few feet away.  When I posed the same question to her, she gave the same reply…..no one except me had entered or left the stairwell.  It was at that time that I began to understand that I had been touched by an angel.

            For a long time I kept the visit of the angel to myself.  I did not want people to think I was a fanatic, a crazy person.  Now I know that the angel was real.

            Jack did recover from the heart attack.  Shortly after he returned home from the hospital we were talking about how serious the attack has been.  He said he wanted the Lord to allow him to live until Heather got out of high school.  She was nine years old and the baby in the family.  The Lord granted that wish, plus giving him extra years.   He lived seventeen more years among his family and friends until the hot day in July 1995 when the angel of death came for him.   The massive heart attack that day would claim another Hardee before retirement.