I am trying to continue my column from last month and I find myself still having difficulty putting my thoughts together. My emotions feel too raw. It isn’t that things aren’t getting better, they are. It is just that our family has yet to be able to breathe. As soon as I type these words they feel selfish, because there is no way I am as emotionally raw as the families that are reeling from a sudden death and now need to plan a funeral.

  That was me some 20 years ago when I was a wife in absolute grief with no idea how to plan a funeral or how difficult it can be to answer the one question almost every person asks: “How did he die?” The short answer is that my husband died of a heart attack. The real answer is even 20 years later there are still times when someone asks me that question and my heart breaks just a little. That question can take me back to the moment I dialed 911 with my toes so that I could continue to give my husband CPR. It doesn’t take me back every time, not even close, but there are still times. This is why I never ask anyone how their person died.

  It is also why I never asked anyone I met at the hospital why they were there, including the young woman on the floor outside of the Neuro Surgical Intensive Care Unit at Beth Israel Hospital that I came across while running from the Surgical Intensive Care unit to my sleep room. To be honest I cannot even tell you what she looks like and it doesn’t matter. All I know is that I was running down the hall to get something for my dad when my body began to stop. I tried to ignore it. I even got a few steps past her.

  I cannot tell you what made me stop except to say as I walked past her I felt a physical pull towards her that I could not ignore. I took the four steps backwards reached out my hand and said, “I am not with the hospital, I am a family member and I know there are times in our lives when words can’t help. May I sit with you?” She took my hand and I sat down. Without my saying a word she told me she was sitting there because her dad was pulling the plug on her grandmom right now.

  I didn’t ask why. I took both her hands and said I have no idea where you are in faith. If you believe in Heaven, Paradise, Nirvana, or that all we get at the end is one big nap. I only know at this moment as tired as I am a big nap sounds like paradise.

  That’s the moment she let me know the divine had brought us together. She told me that she did not have to be in the room because she was there when her grandmom’s spirit left. I gave her a hug and said I have something for you. I then got up, ran to my dad’s room in SICU, told him everything that just happened, and we knew I needed to give her “A Gift From Heaven.”

  I took a few minutes to get my dad settled and ran out of SICU just in time to see the young woman, her dad, and another woman walking away. I ran after them put my hand lightly on her dad’s shoulder and said I am not with the hospital, I am a family member, and this is for your daughter. As the young woman opened the silver box and showed her family the Angel Chime, the dad collapsed in tears on my shoulder, the older daughter mouthed thank you, and the youngest held her grandmom’s angel to her heart.

  I now know that her grandmom’s spirit is why we met. I pray this woman helps you open your heart to how the divine can lead you and hope you will read my next column about the spiritualist, the rabbi, and the elevator.