Little Book of Hospital Miracles

Chapter 1
Mamie

Mamie was a ninety-six-year-old lady from my church. She was a faithful churchgoer, and her name had been in our church bulletin for a long time in the “Pray for the Sick” section. She was a bony woman, weighing about ninety pounds, with wild-looking white hair, translucent skin, and searching, pale-blue eyes. She had congestive heart failure. Back in the ’80s, we did not have the varied medicines to care for that diagnosis that we do today. We had a couple of medications: digoxin and furosemide (Lasix). Mamie, however, had been taking these medications for quite a while, and they were no longer effective. She had an oxygen cannula that was supposed to be in her nose, but it bothered her quite a bit, and she frequently took it off and wore it like a hat. This kept me busy, putting it back on. One morning, with bated breath, she said, “I want to die.” I gave her a forlorn look, but she looked me in the eye and said, “I want to go home to the Lord.”
“Please don’t die today!” I cried.
“Nurse, I have outlived my husband and sons. All my friends are dead. No one even comes to visit me.” A tear slid from the corner of her eye.
I dried her tears with a tissue and held her hand. I did not know what to say.
Mamie barely had the energy to talk to me, but she was fond of throwing her legs over the side rails of her bed and throwing herself onto the floor. She really wanted to die; she was trying to kill herself.
I felt sorry for her, but I did not know what to do for her. I tried to sit with her and hold her hand as often as I could. I would speak softly to her and pray with her. I got into trouble with my head nurse because Mamie kept “falling.” I was very worried that she would injure herself seriously.
“Please don’t jump out of bed anymore,” I pleaded.
“I told you, Nurse; I don’t want to live anymore,” Mamie retorted.
I was getting frustrated because I had four other patients, and I could not stay in her room constantly to prevent her from falling (or jumping) out of bed. I hated to put a Posey vest on her, but I knew I would need to if she didn’t quit jumping. (A Posey vest is a mesh vest that is used to restrain a patient to the bed. It has ties on the bottom that are secured to the bed.) It would prevent her from falling out of bed, but she might get tangled in it.
One day, as I peeked into Mamie’s room, I saw her smiling and lifting her arms as she looked at the northeast corner of her room. She was barely able to speak but said, “I see the Lord.”
I looked at her face, and it was transformed into a look of wonder, awe, and calm.
“Don’t you see Him? He is right over there.”
I looked intently at the corner but saw nothing but the television mounted on the wall. “I’m sorry. I don’t see anything,” I said.
She waved me away, but I suddenly had an idea—I moved the visitor’s chair and her bedside table and nightstand to the other corner of the room. I moved her bed to the northeast corner of the room. She was elated! She kept looking intently in that corner and smiling. She was no longer agitated or trying to throw herself out of bed. She seemed to be talking to whomever she saw in that corner of the room.
She said, “It is the Lord. Nurse, can’t you see Him now?”
I looked again in that corner but only saw the TV mounted on the wall. I looked very carefully and was hesitant to tell her again that I couldn’t see Him. “No,” I said sadly.
She looked disappointed in me and said, “Well, He is right there.”
I kept checking on her for the rest of my shift and saw her smiling and looking radiant, gazing in the corner of that room. Mamie died that night, peacefully, in her sleep. She got her wish.
Since Mamie had such a dramatic change in her demeanor and behavior, I do believe she saw the Lord. It is not explainable by any other means.