I sat in my hotel room, listening to the ambulance sirens blaring outside. I thought of my husband, Larry, all alone in his hospital room. Tomorrow was the big day. We’d driven three hours to San Diego so he could undergo experimental surgery to remove multiple blood clots blocking the major arteries to his lungs. It was risky, but we had no other choice.
At 52, Larry had always been athletic. But for the past year he’d been having trouble breathing. Something as simple as tying his shoes left him panting. “Your lungs look like Swiss cheese,” his doctor explained. “You won’t live to be an old man unless you have surgery.”
We didn’t know what to expect. Larry would be only the 58th person in the world to undergo the procedure. What if he didn’t make it? How would I raise the kids on my own? I shook my head, willing the thoughts away. Life without Larry was unthinkable.
I opened up my Bible. It was getting late, but I was searching for comfort. A promise that everything would be okay. I flipped through the Psalms. One passage seemed to glow on the page: “For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock.”
Pavilion? It struck me as an unusual word. A term for a shelter, a hiding place. I reread the verse, mulling it over. If only I could hide from all of this.
The next morning at 4 A.M., I headed to the hospital. I held Larry’s hand and blinked back tears. “I love you,” I said, kissing him on the cheek. “See you in a few hours.”
The orderly wheeled him off to surgery. I waved until he was no longer in view. Was this the last time I’d ever see him?
“Come with me,” the nurse said, leading me to the family waiting room. I was about to step through when I noticed a small plaque above the doorway. The words engraved on it caught the fluorescent light of the hospital corridor: The Pavilion.
Six hours later, the surgeon came to tell me that Larry’s operation had been a complete success. Somehow, I already knew it would be.
