I started to write, “a funny thing happened in the emergency room” but it wasn’t funny. I would say it was life changing.

 

My mother died on Feb. 22. I got the call just before noon. By 6 p.m. I was in the emergency room with my dad. It was a day filled with emotions too numerous to count. I followed behind the ambulance as it made its way to the hospital. I parked my car and went to the check-in desk where I was told to wait until my dad was settled in a room. 

 

The waiting area was packed. But because I was consumed by grief and worry, it seemed like I was all alone there. I knew there were sick and suffering people — lots of them — filling the ER that Friday evening waiting to be seen and waiting to feel better. But sadly, I was too grieved and worried to care.

 

I asked several times to go back into the emergency area to be with my dad and tried quietly to explain through the noise, what had happened that day, and that information about my dad was really important. Finally a nurse came to get me and I wiped back the tears to keep from causing further upset for my dad. 

 

As we waited for treatment and decisions, I went back to the car to give my phone a charge. I passed a young woman who had been in the ER waiting area even before I arrived. She was a slight, pretty woman with beautiful dark eyes wearing a light colored hijab. 

 

As I passed by her on my way back to Dad’s area in the ER, the woman reached out to touch my arm and asked, “Missus, how is your father? I have been praying for him.” She obviously overheard the earlier tearful conversation.

 

There aren’t many times I am rendered speechless or feel like there is no breath in my body, but this was certainly one of those times. Amidst all the pain and worry in that room, someone was watching.

 Someone tuned into my sorrow and my pain. 

 

A total stranger, obviously of another faith, reached out to offer one of the most powerful medicines … prayer. 

 

I was so overwhelmed by her soft voice and her gentle offer that I could barely utter a thank you. I stepped away and then came back and said to her, “Maam, you really don’t know how much your prayers mean to me right now. I lost my mother today.” She said in an accent, “I’m so sorry. I will pray for her too.” I tearfully thanked her and continued to my dad. 

 

Through all that was happening, I couldn’t stop thinking about this woman. I began to wonder who she was with and what her sorrow might be. 

 

In the early morning hours when I left for home, she was gone from the waiting room.

 

Three days later I sat by my dad’s bedside as he recovered from a test in the cath lab. I shared the amazing meeting with my dad. We made other small talk while his vitals were checked and the nurse left to assist the patient in the next bed behind a curtain with getting up. As we talked, the woman held by the arm and trailed by IV’s stepped toward the hall. She looked at me and I looked at her, and we immediately recognized each other. It was my prayer angel. She stopped walking and I stopped talking and we met in an embrace. 

 

Seeing her made me realize that while she waiting in the ER days ago, she had her own trials, her own pain, her own fears that brought her to the hospital, but she still opened her heart and her conversation with God to me and my dad. 

 

I immediately asked her how she was and what her name was. I told her I wanted to talk to God about her by name. She and dad both ended up being okay.

 

This moment provides evidence that the world can be peaceful and stop being ugly. If people can just find and call upon that common ground, peace and goodness happens. Prayer is a common conversation. It is a gift that knows no ethnicity, no boundaries, no demomination. Prayer is the language of love — that common ground that can bring us together in good times and bad. Love can save us and the world.