A Walk Down the Hall

"It's been over two minutes, at 200, we're going to have to crash her!"

I don't feel that bad, just tired. A cart is wheeled in. The room begins to fill with Doctors and Nurses, some who can only find room enough to peek in the door. According to the nurse who wound her way through the crowd earlier, I am the main attraction today in cardiac ICU. I feel embarrassed.

"Okay honey, this is going to bring your heart rate down."

I am injected with a medicine that immediately sends me down a long hall of consciousness, I can't move or speak. I think that maybe I am allergic to this medicine.

I feel as if I am dying. I start to cry out in the long hallway, I will not be able to be a mother to my son. I will never get a chance to hold him. I think of my family. A presence is there with me down this long hallway, it is telling me that I shouldn't worry, if I should depart all will be well, there is love down this long hallway, and it is telling me not to worry.

A Nurse's face leans over mine.

"Let me guess, it felt like dying didn't it?"

I can't nod my head to her but try to tell her she's correct with my eyes.

The baby is coming, I am going to fight, I am determined to win.

"I see him! Push!"
"Get the suction!"

I want to jump up and hug the Doctor who said that, but I can't.

"Don't push, stop!"
"The baby's here!! There he is!"
"He's beautiful!"

They put my baby on my chest, he is a large baby and I am too weak to hold on to him. They pick him up and place him next to me in his own bed.

I can see him, he looks like a baby who is a month old, not a newborn. Did Walt Disney and God collaborate here? His eyes are doe shaped, a perfect blond curl on top of his head. His skin is a healthy shade of peach-pink, long dark eyelashes. He cries only a bit, it is not a screech. They won't let me nurse him, they have to wait until the drugs they used clear my system.


I am coming back to this world and before I go I call down the long hallway and say thank you to that presence. I am so happy in this moment.