Room 712

The following is a true story from Sue Kidd, a nurse of my acquaintance. It illustrates a very important principle.

The hospital was unusually quiet that bleak January evening. I stood in the nurses' station on the seventh floor and glanced at the clock. It was 9 P.M. I threw a stethoscope around my neck and headed for room 712. It had a new patient, Mr. Williams. He was a man all alone, a man strangely silent about his family. As I entered the room, he looked up eagerly, but drooped his eyes when he saw it was only me. I pressed the stethoscope over his chest and listened. Strong, slow, even beating. Just what I wanted to hear. There seemed little indication he had suffered a slight heart attack a few hours earlier. He looked up from his starched white bed. "Nurse, would you - "He hesitated, tears filling his eyes. Once before he had started to ask me a question, but changed his mind. I touched his hand, waiting. He brushed away a tear. "Would you call my daughter? Tell her I've had a heart attack. A slight one. You see, I live alone and she is the only family I have." His respiration suddenly speeded up. I turned his nasal oxygen up to eight liters a minute. "Of course I'll call her," I said, studying his face. He gripped the sheets and pulled himself forward, his face tense with urgency. "Will you call her right away - as soon as you can?" He was breathing fast - too fast. "I'll call her the very first thing," I said, patting his shoulder. I flipped off the light. He closed his eyes. "Nurse," he called, "could you get me a pencil and paper?" I dug a scrap of yellow paper and a pen from my pocket and set it on the bedside table. I walked back to the nurses' station and sat in a squeaky swivel chair by the phone. Mr. Williams's daughter was listed on his chart as the next of kin. I got her number from information and dialed. Her soft voice answered. "Janie, this is Sue Kidd, a registered nurse at the hospital. I'm calling about your father. He was admitted tonight with a slight heart attack and " "No!" she screamed into the phone, startling me. "He's not dying is he ?" "His condition is stable at the moment," I said, trying hard to sound convincing. Silence. I bit my lip. "You must not let him die!" she said. "He is getting the very best care." "But you don't understand," she pleaded. "My daddy and I haven't spoken. On my 21st birthday, we had a fight over my boyfriend. I ran out of the house. I haven't been back. All these months I've wanted to go to him for forgiveness. The last thing I said to him was, 'I hate you." As Janie struggled to control her tears, I breathed a prayer. "Please God, let this daughter find forgiveness." "I'm coming. Now! I'll be there in 30 minutes," she said. Click. She had hung up. I tried to busy myself with a stack of charts on the desk. I couldn't concentrate. I knew I had to get back to 712. I hurried down the hall nearly in a run. I opened the door. Mr. Williams lay unmoving. I reached for his pulse. There was none. "Code 99, Room 712. Code 99. Stat." The alert was shooting through the hospital within seconds after I called the switchboard through the intercom by the bed. Mr. Williams had a cardiac arrest. The door burst open. Doctors and nurses poured into the room pushing emergency equipment. A doctor took over the manual compression of the heart. Nothing. Not a beat. When I left the room, I saw her against a wall by a water fountain. A doctor who had been inside 712 only moments before stood at her side, talking to her, gripping her elbow. Then he moved on, leaving her slumped against the wall. Such pathetic hurt reflected from her face. She knew. The doctor had told her that her father was gone. I took her hand and led her into the nurses' lounge. She stared straight ahead at a pharmaceutical calendar, glass-faced, almost breakable-looking. "Janie, I'm so, so sorry," I said. It was pitifully inadequate. "I never hated him, you know. I loved him," she said. God, please help her, I thought. Suddenly she whirled toward me. "I want to see him." We walked slowly down the corridor to 712. We moved to the bed, huddled together, taking small steps in unison. Janie leaned over the bed and buried her face in the sheets. I tried not to look at her at this sad, sad good-bye. I backed against the bedside table. My hand fell upon a scrap of yellow paper. I picked it up. It read: "My dearest Janie, I forgive you. I pray you will also forgive me. I know that you love me. I love you too, Daddy" The note was shaking in my hands as I thrust it toward Janie. She read it once. Then twice. Her tormented face grew radiant. Peace began to glisten in her eyes. She hugged the scrap of paper to her breast. "Thank You, God," I whispered, looking up at the window. A few crystal stars blinked through the blackness. A snowflake hit the window and melted away, gone forever. Life seemed as fragile as a snowflake on the window. But thank You, God, that relationships, sometimes fragile as snowflakes, can be mended together again - but there is not a moment to spare. I crept from the room and hurried to the phone. I would call my father. I would say, "I love you."

The Apostle John had this to say: “This is the message we have heard from the beginning: We should love one another” (1 John 2:11, NLV). Is there someone you need to call today?