The C-141 Starlifter had just returned from a cargo run. My husband, Jeff, an airman 1st class, checked the life support equipment—the oxygen masks, the parachutes. All in working order, nothing out of place. Except for something odd left behind on one of the seats. A crocheted white cross, three inches long. It didn’t belong to any of the crew. No one knew how it got there.
Jeff brought it home for me. He thought it would provide some comfort. I’d been five months pregnant with our first child, Aurora, when we left our home in West Virginia and moved to a two-bedroom apartment near Jeff’s base in Tacoma, Washington. I was having trouble adjusting to a new place, thousands of miles away from our friends and family, while caring for a newborn. I rarely left the apartment. To keep sane, I read the Bible and leaned on my Catholic faith. But the moment Jeff walked into the kitchen and put the crocheted cross in my hands, I had a strong feeling it was meant for someone else.
The woman who lives across the hall. Give it to her. She needs it right now.
Did she really? I didn’t know a thing about her. Only that she was blonde, in her early 20s, a military wife like me. Was she even a Christian? How would she react to the cross? I hoped to make friends—not drive people away who might think I was too religious.
I spent all night debating it. In the morning, I decided I had to follow that little voice, even if it meant embarrassment. My neighbor wasn’t home, so I wrote a card, slipped the cross inside, and left it in her mailbox.
Several weeks passed, no response. Then one day, my neighbor showed up at my door with her young daughter. “Would you like to join us at the park?” she asked.
“Sure!” I said. Maybe that cross had made a good impression.
I bundled up Aurora and we went along. We spread a blanket on the grass and sat down.
“I’m sorry I didn’t respond to you sooner,” my neighbor said. “A few months ago, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I had no idea…”
“It’s okay.” She smiled. “You see, I was praying for a sign from above that the doctors would heal me. Then I received your cross. Today I found out… I’m cancer-free!”
It was a sign from above all right, I told her. Delivered from 40,000 feet.
