I left work at 12:00 AM.
It was now Sunday morning. I would
go back to work at 4:00 PM. At
least that was my plan. But plans
change. We make plans, then we change
our minds, or we make plans…and God, Fate, Karma, whatever…changes our
plans for us. And those changes are really
life-changing, and sometimes eternally permanent.
It was around 10:00 PM this past Saturday when a mature lady and a young
girl of about ten or eleven years burst into the Emergency Room where I
work. Both of them were in tears and
hysterical. Fate or Karma, or God, had
touched their lives in a tragic way. The
lady’s grandson, the girl’s uncle, had been killed in a traffic accident. The poor lady knew no other information, and
really was not sure that her grandson was indeed dead. I left my station and walked into the waiting
room. I helped the lady and the young
girl to some chairs. I told the lady
that maybe the news was not as bad as she had first been told, after all. She calmed a little but told me she was nearly
certain that her grandson must be dead.
But then she said that her great-grand children had survived the
accident and she thought they were being brought to the Midland hospital.
Apparently no one had witnessed the wreck, but the
occupants of a passing vehicle saw two small children walking around near the
roadway, and no adult was in sight. The
children thought their father must be walking somewhere, as they told the
strangers who had stopped to help them.
Unfortunately the father was not walking somewhere. In fact, he was found several hundred feet
from a wrecked vehicle that had obviously ran off the road and rolled over,
throwing the driver out. Somehow the
children had been spared, almost unscathed.
I made a couple phone calls and found out that the man had been killed,
but the children were in fact on an ambulance and en route to the
hospital. The lady was still shaken and
of course grief-stricken, but seemed to be calmed immensely just knowing now
for certain that her grandson was dead.
I stayed with this poor lady until the children
arrived. A minister went with her to
check on the children, and I returned to my abandoned duty station. It ran through my mind once again that life
is so uncertain, and everything can change in a heartbeat. We always say to ourselves, and to others as
well, that we could die at any time. But
I, for myself anyway, have often thought “yes, I could die any time, but since
it is already later on in the day, I will probably be spared at least until
tomorrow.” Once again, Fate changed on a
dime, and a man who had spent most of the day with his two children did not
live to see the stroke of midnight.
After I clocked out for the night, I had to walk back
through the emergency waiting room to exit the hospital. The lady who had just lost her grandson was
again seated in the emergency room, talking with relatives who had by now
started to gather at the hospital. As I
walked by, she gave me a hug and told me she was thankful for the kindness I
had shown her, and that I had been a source of comfort even while she was
facing such a tragic loss. Though this
was a tragedy, I was glad to have been a small part of this woman’s life,
exactly when I was needed.
As I drove away, it occurred to me that there was a
chance I might not finish the short drive to my residence. After all, anything could happen at any
time. Almost as if Fate were confirming
my feelings, a car ran the red light at the intersection I was approaching. If that dear lady had not delayed me a few
seconds with her show of affection, I might well have been the next fatality of
the night. When I parked my car, I got
out and just looked at the bright full moon and the stars of heaven. As I drank all that wonder into my soul, I
reminded myself to enjoy life, and to let all my loved ones and friends know that
I love and care for them. For FATE truly
can change…even before the sun rises on a new day.
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