Saturday, December 15, 2012

A Story of Hope

I received the following narrative from a reader:

The pictures I am sending you and the story I am sharing with you are mine. This horrible story happened to me and my family in November of 2005. My sister used to call me every night and we would talk...some times for long periods about all kinds of things, our day, dreams for the future, etc. She called me the night of 11/01/05 and we did not talk more than 10 minutes as we were both busy. I simply thought we would talk longer the next night.

I was at work on the afternoon of 11/02/05 when I got a phone call from the Sheriff’s office where my sister, Liz worked. I worked in one county and she worked in the county we both lived in. The officer on the phone told me my sister was found unconscious and she was taken by ambulance to the hospital. I immediately called my mother and told her that I was going to the hospital since it was near where I worked. My mother was recovering from a bout of pneumonia and decided to stay home. We both thought my sister had another asthma attack and that she would be alright. I went to the hospital.

The doctor in the emergency room had removed an asthma inhaler form my sisters hand and gave it to me. He told me that the inhaler was a dangerous product and that it stopped my sister’s heart. He also said he was very concerned because she had not woken up. He said that most people wake up and ask what happened to them after their heart stops. He said he was moving her to ICU and we needed to give her time. I removed an angel pin form the lapel of her shirt. I also removed three necklaces with angels on them from her neck while we were in the ER. By the time she was moved to her ICU room it was very late and I was exhausted. My sister was already in the room when I arrived and a nurse came in right after. She wrote her name “Charlotte” on the board and I felt comforted by that because that is my mother's and my daughter’s name. “Charlotte” was setting up monitors and putting blankets on my sister. She told me flat out that my sister would not recover from this incident, she said there is no way. She was kind, but frank and I would come to appreciate her honesty as time went on. I finally went home to get some sleep and I dreaded having to tell my mother in the morning about the situation. We would spend 2 weeks at the hospital with my sister. I never saw Nurse Charlotte, again.

The next 2 weeks were grueling because my mother and I spent all day at the hospital while all kinds of testing were going on. Then we would head to my sister’s house to take care of her animals. I was also going through her financial papers because her mortgage, car, and utilities still had to be paid. Finally the doctors delivered the bad news that while her heart had been stopped her brain had been deprived of oxygen and most of it was dead. The only portion of her brain that was still functioning and the reason they could not declare her brain dead was because she had just a small portion of the brain that controls breathing still functioning. After much discussion and soul searching my mother and I agreed to longer maintain her body by machines and let her go.

Our visits to the hospital became a death watch. We prayed for her, asked her forgiveness, and hoped we were making the right decision. After long days at the hospital we would now go to her house and began dismantling everything. We gave her clothes and food in the house to Salvation Army. My sister did not have a lot of cash, so after the November payment my mother and I took turns making the payments on the house. In the moments when I was not so busy and overwhelmed I asked again and again if this was the right thing to do. My sister passed away 11/17/2005 at 11:30 pm, she was only 44.

We had the funeral the next week. We had a small Christmas in December and I was frantically trying to empty her house so I could get it on the market for sale. What I did not sell I had the movers bring my sisters things to my house. I painted her house and had the carpet replaced and it sold in March of 2006.

In early January of 2006 I was not working at my sister’s house anymore because it was ready and on the market. I had several of her things in my house and one of them was a matte finish painting she had over sofa in her living room. It was large and I had the movers lean it up against the wall in my hallway. I already had a picture hanging there that had a glass covering. My intent was to hang my sisters painting over my sofa, but I wanted to paint the room to match first. My neighbor came over on the morning of January 10, 2006 and she took several pictures of the room and hall way so she could help me decorate the room tastefully. She and I saw nothing out of the ordinary while she was taking the pictures with her digital camera.

However, the next day she contacted me at work and she was hysterical and kept asking me if there was an angel in my sister’s painting? I said no, I did not think so. My sister collected angels and I have several that I retrieved from her home, but there was not one in the picture. The photos I have sent to you are two views of the same thing----a bright white light or energy in the shape of an angel. The first one is a picture my neighbor took down the hall way-----you can see the light, but may not really know what it is. The second photo was standing directly in front of the picture and the Angel is very clear in the same corner of the picture. I still have this particular painting and the amazing thing is that the trees in the painting go way up and are very solid, but they cannot be seen because of the Angel.
Was this my sister? Or was it something else to let me know that I did the right thing? I do not know. However, if I ever begin to doubt that there is more after this world then I have a solid tangible picture from my sister that there is indeed more.

Lydia R.

(You may share my story and my pictures especially if it gives hope to others-----tis the season)