The sun was just beginning to come up as I pulled into the ER parking lot. The morning started smoothly enough, with only a handful of routine cases. I was coming out of room 4 when Virginia, the head nurse, walked over, glanced at the empty major trauma room, and motioned for me to follow her.
“Dr. Lesslie,” she began. Her voice was somehow different, and it surprised me. She was speaking quietly, but with a definite seriousness, and there was something else there. It was a gentleness, something I couldn’t remember hearing before. “Do you believe in angels?”
I sat there, looking at this ex-military nurse, with her starched and stiff white uniform and the pointed white cap on her head. This was a woman who intimidated most of the physicians on the medical staff and who never backed down from the biggest, most belligerent troublemaker in the ER. In fact, with her feet apart and her hands on her hips, she never failed to back down all of them. And here she was, sitting in front of me and asking me this question.
I studied her face for a moment and knew that her question was serious. And I knew she really wanted to know what I thought. “I do, and I think if you work in the ER long enough, you have to.”
“You know I’m not talking about wings and harps and halos and all of that,” she replied, smiling a little. “Although I’m not ruling it out entirely.” She chuckled a little, and I found myself relaxing, intrigued by this conversation. We had never talked like this before. “Do you remember the little Carpenter girl?” she asked me. “Emmy, I think her name was. The child with the leukemia?” It had only been a few months, and I clearly remembered the six- year-old.
“Yes, I was here the last time she came in,” I answered. “You were here too, if I remember correctly. It was just two days before she died.” “And do you remember what she told us that morning?” I tried to focus, struggling to remember anything Emmy might have said, something that would have stuck in my mind. But I had been busy, in and out of the room, trying to get things lined up for her admission and talking with her specialists. “I don’t know,” I answered finally. “I don’t remember anything unusual.”
“Well, I was in the room with her, and she was lying on the stretcher, as calm and peaceful as always. And then she asked me if I saw them.” Virginia paused and put her hand to her chin. Then she took another deep breath, sighed, and went on. “I asked her. ‘Who?’ and she pointed to the end of the stretcher and said, ‘Those beautiful ladies.’ ”
Virginia’s voice was trembling, and tears were forming in her eyes. But she continued. “I told her I couldn’t see them, but I knew they were there. And Emmy said, ‘They like you, Miss G.’ And Dr. Lesslie, I can’t explain it, but I had this feeling, it was the most peaceful…” She couldn’t go on, and I waited.
Finally, she looked up at me. “And then that little girl smiled and said, ‘Miss G, they told me not to worry and that everything will be alright. They said Jesus knows my name. And he knows yours too.’ ” Once more she was silent, and I just looked at her. And then I wiped away the tears from my own eyes. Virginia sat up straighter, slapped her knees, and leaned closer to me.
“Dr. Lesslie, there are different kinds of angels in this world, and I believe the Lord puts them in our lives when we need them most, at just the right time and at just the right place. It’s all more than I can understand, but I know it’s all real. And I do believe in angels, Dr. Lesslie. You just have to keep your eyes open. They’re out there and they’re with us. I know that for certain.”
