Green. Everywhere. So intense it glows. I breathe in the sweet perfume of orchids and make my way through the lush vegetation. Up a winding dirt path. Waxy leaves on either side tickle my arms. The path grows narrower until it opens onto a grassy field. All at once I see her. She stands in the middle of the clearing. A petite woman with flowing dark hair. Her face tilted toward the sun. Lips moving soundlessly. She turns and greets me with a lopsided grin. A sense of calm enwraps me. Like a hug. She stretches her arms wide. We sit on the soft grass and talk, words I cannot hear. I only know one thing for sure: I’m at peace.
My eyes snapped open to a familiar sight. Beige walls. Fluorescent lights. Tangles of blue wires. The smell of disinfectant and mashed peas hanging in the air. The grim reality of my surroundings. To my right, my twenty-two-year-old daughter, Liz, was hooked up to a bank of monitors that blinked and beeped like some medical symphony. She was pale and emaciated. She squeezed my hand. I forced a smile.
I ran a hand through my hair and stretched out my legs. My back had assumed the contours of the armchair I’d slept in for the past two nights, ever since Liz had gotten sick.
It started with a fever. I came home from work and found her curled up in a ball on her bed, covered in sweat. She couldn’t keep anything down. I rushed her to the urgent-care clinic, figuring it was a twenty-four-hour virus. If only.
The doctor ran blood work. Liz’s blood-sugar levels were through the roof—above five hundred milligrams. The normal range is seventy to eighty. Her body wasn’t producing any insulin. That meant only one thing—diabetes. Type 1. It ran in my family. But I’d thought my prayers had spared Liz.
What I wouldn’t give for that peace from my dream! It had come to me for the first time three months earlier, before Liz had gotten sick. And I’d had it again four times after that. Always the same serene tropical surroundings, the same woman in the clearing. She was unlike anyone I knew. Speaking words I’d never heard that went straight to my heart. Only I couldn’t remember anything she said. I’d had vivid dreams before, but never a recurring one, and never like this. I lived in the Missouri Ozarks. Travel to exotic locales wasn’t exactly typical for me.
Instead, I was here at Liz’s bedside, stiff and anxious. Insulin shots for the rest of her life. That’s what the doctor had said. A nurse had just popped in to teach Liz how to administer them herself. My daughter had put on a brave face, but her eyes had filled with tears at the bee-sting pinch of the needle. Bee stings 365 days a year.
I wanted to pound on those beige walls, make it all go away. People kept telling me, “Everything’s going to be okay.” And “God has a plan.” How did they know? I knew only too well how the disease could wreak havoc on the body.
My big sister, Shirley, had suffered her whole life. She was in and out of hospitals. A reaction to too much insulin or too little. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and find Mom forcing apple juice between Shirley’s chattering teeth. I’d grown accustomed to the sound of my parents talking in hushed tones about her condition. Shirley was a trouper. She never complained. But her illness was her life. I didn’t want that for Liz. Even though diabetes care had advanced quite a bit since Shirley and I were children, it was still a serious disease, a life-changer.
I closed my eyes, exhausted. In the background, I could make out the sound of squeaky footsteps on the linoleum floor. Great—the nurse was back with more needles?
Not a nurse. Was that . . . a nun? She stood in the doorway of Liz’s room.
“Well!” she said. “I am just so happy to finally meet you. I’m Sister Elizabeth, the hospital chaplain.”
She stepped inside and stretched out her arms as if she were hugging the air around us. She was a small woman, but she seemed to take up the entire room. Her hair was dark. I tried to compose myself. The nun hadn’t taken her eyes off me since she had come in. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
“Your name is Elizabeth?” I said after an eternity. “Same as my daughter, Liz.”
She flashed a crooked grin. Then she reached for both our hands.
“I want you to know,” she said, “that Liz is going to be okay. This isn’t her whole story. Just a bend in the road.”
I looked up. The nun’s dark eyes were focused on mine. “He’s watching out for you,” she said.
She hugged Liz and handed me her business card. “If there’s anything you need, just holler,” she said.
Her words echoed in my mind as I heard her squeaking down the corridor. My shoulders relaxed. Just a bend in the road. Finally, words of encouragement I could believe in.
After all, this wasn’t the first time Sister Elizabeth had known the right thing to say. She was the very same woman I’d met in my dreams, identical in every way.