CALL A LOVED ONE
The hospital was unusually quiet that bleak January evening, quiet
and still like the air before a storm. I stood in the nurses'
station on the seventh floor and glanced at the clock. It was 9
P.M. I threw a stethoscope around my neck and headed for room 712,
last room on the hall. Room 712 had a new patient. Mr. Williams. A
man all alone. A man strangely silent about his family. As I
entered the room, Mr. Williams looked up eagerly, but drooped his
eyes when he saw it was only me, his nurse. I pressed the
stethoscope over his chest and listened. Strong, slow, even
beating. Just what I wanted to hear. There seemed little indication
he had suffered a slight heart attack a few hours earlier. He
looked up from his starched white bed. "Nurse, would you -- " He
hesitated, tears filling his eyes. Once before he had started to
ask me a question, but changed his mind. I touched his hand,
waiting. He brushed away a tear. "Would you call my daughter? Tell
her I've had a heart attack. A slight one. You see, I live alone
and she is the only family I have." His respiration suddenly
speeded up. I turned his nasal oxygen up to eight liters a minute.
"Of course I'll call her, I said, studying his face. He gripped the
sheets and pulled himself forward, his face tense with urgency.
"Will you call her right away -- as soon as you can?" He was
breathing fast -- too fast. "I'll call her the very first thing," I
said, patting his shoulder. I flipped off the light. He closed his
eyes, such young blue eyes in his 50 - year -- old face. Room 712
was dark except for a faint night light under the sink. Oxygen
gurgled in the green tubes above his bed. Reluctant to leave, I
moved through the shadowy silence to the window. The panes were
cold. Below a foggy mist curled through the hospital parking lot.
"Nurse," he called, "could you get me a pencil and paper?" I dug a
scrap of yellow and a pen from my pocket and set it on the bedside
table. I walked back to the nurses' station and sat in a squeaky
swivel chair by the phone. Mr. Williams's daughter was listed on
his chart as the next of kin. I got her number from information and
dialed. Her soft voice answered. "Janie, this is Sue Kidd, a
registered nurse at the hospital. I'm calling about your father. He
was admitted tonight with a slight heart attack and -- "No!" she
screamed into the phone, startling me. "He's not dying is he ?"
"His condition is stable at the moment," I said, trying hard to
sound convincing. Silence. I bit my lip. "You must not let him
die!" she said. Her voice was so utterly compelling that my hand
trembled on the phone. "He is getting the very best care." "But you
don't understand," she pleaded. "My daddy and I haven't spoken
since my 21st birthday, we had a fight over my boyfriend. I ran out
of the house. I-I haven't been back. All these months I've wanted
to go to him for forgiveness. The last thing I said to him was, 'I
hate you." Her voice cracked and I heard her heave great agonizing
sobs. I sat, listening, tears burning my eyes. A father and a
daughter, so lost to each other. Then I was thinking of my own
father, many miles away. It has been so long since I had said, "I
love you." As Janie struggled to control her tears, I breathed a
prayer. "Please God, let this daughter find forgiveness." "I'm
coming. Now! I'll be there in 30 minutes," she said. Click. She had
hung up. I tried to busy myself with a stack of charts on the desk.
I couldn't concentrate. Room 712; I knew I had to get back to 712.
I hurried down the hall nearly in a run. I opened the door. Mr.
Williams lay unmoving. I reached for his pulse. There was none.
"Code 99, Room 712. Code 99. Stat." The alert was shooting through
the hospital within seconds after I called the switchboard through
the intercom by the bed. Mr. Williams had had a cardiac arrest.
With lightning speed I leveled the bed and bent over his mouth,
breathing air into his lungs (twice). I positioned my hands over
his chest and compressed. One, two, three. I tried to count. At
fifteen I moved back to his mouth and breathed as deeply as I
could. Where was help? Again I compressed and breathed, Compressed
and breathed. He could not die! "O God," I prayed. "His daughter is
coming. Don't let it end this way." The door burst open. Doctors
and nurses poured into the room pushing emergency equipment. A
doctor took over the manual compression o f the heart. A tube was
inserted through his mouth as an airway. Nurses plunged syringes of
medicine into the intravenous tubing. I connected the heart
monitor. Nothing. Not a beat. My own heart pounded. "God, don't let
it end like this. Not in bitterness and hatred. His daughter is
coming. Let her find peace." "Stand back," cried a doctor. I handed
him the paddles for the electrical shock to the heart. He placed
them on Mr. Williams's chest. Over and over we tried. But nothing.
No response. Mr. Williams was dead. A nurse unplugged the oxygen.
The gurgling stopped. One by one they left, grim and silent. How
could this happen? How? I stood by his bed, stunned. A cold wind
rattled the window, pelting the panes with snow. Outside -
everywhere -- seemed a bed of blackness, cold and dark. How could I
face his daughter? When I left the room, I saw her against a wall
by a water fountain. A doctor who had been inside 712 only moments
before stood at her side, talking to her, gripping her elbow. Then
he moved on, leaving her slumped against the wall. Such pathetic
hurt reflected from her face. Such wounded eyes. She knew. The
doctor had told her that her father was gone. I took her hand and
led her into the nurses' lounge. We sat on little green stools,
neither saying a word. She stared straight ahead at a
pharmaceutical calendar, glass-faced, almost breakable-looking.
"Janie, I'm so, so sorry," I said. It was pitifully inadequate. "I
never hated him, you know. I loved him," she said. God, please help
her, I thought. Suddenly she whirled toward me. "I want to see
him." My first thought was, Why put yourself through more pain?
Seeing him will only make it worse. But I got up and wrapped my arm
around her. We walked slowly down the corridor to 712. Outside the
door I squeezed her hand, wishing she would change her mind about
going inside. She pushed open the door. We moved to the bed,
huddled together, taking small steps in unison. Janie leaned over
the bed and buried her face in the sheets. I tried not to look at
her at this sad, sad good-bye. I backed against the bedside table.
My hand fell upon a scrap of yellow paper. I picked it up. It read:
____________________________________________________ My dearest
Janie, I forgive you. I pray you will also forgive me. I know that
you love me. I love you too, Daddy
_____________________________________________________
The note was shaking in my hands as I thrust it toward Janie. She
read it once. Then twice. Her tormented face grew radiant. Peace
began to glisten in her eyes. She hugged the scrap of paper to her
breast. "Thank You, God," I whispered, looking up at the window. A
few crystal stars blinked through the blackness. A snowflake hit
the window and melted away, gone forever. Life seemed as fragile as
a snowflake on the window. But thank You, God, that relationships,
sometimes fragile as snowflakes, can be mended together again --
but there is not a moment to spare. I crept from the room and
hurried to the phone. I would call my father. I would say, "I love
you From me to you, do not wait until it is to late to tell those
that you love that you do care. You might be missing the greatest
joy of your life. This story touched me in a very profound way. I
hope you gain as much joy as I did by reading it as the tears are
still streaming down my face. Take care
