It was a cold and dark. The room was poorly lit and she was all alone. She could see no one else in the room but there was a feeling she needed someone. Alice remembered the call came in at 2:13 am. Her son John had been injured in a car accident and she couldn’t believe he was still in surgery. As she looked up at the clock just passing 5, she saw someone walking down the hall toward her tiny room that really began closing in on her.

It was a doctor who she had never seen and with him was a nurse. The nurse opened the door and introduced herself as Katie and then introduced Dr. Smith. As Alice stood there, she had that feeling; that feeling that things didn’t go as planned by the doctor. Why would this nurse be here if things were good? Why would the doctor come in at 5 am when surgery was supposed to be no longer than an hour. “What’s going on?” Alice screamed as Dr. Smith began talking. “Alice, I need you to take a deep breath,” Dr. Smith said. “Things didn’t go as planned during surgery. John was a strong young man who fought and we fought for him, but his injuries, they were more than we could have ever imagined. Alice, I’m sorry but John didn’t make it.”

It was silent in the room. The faded blue green walls reminded her of a wave crashing down around her. As Katie and Dr. Smith looked at Alice, they saw what they had feared all along. She was alone without John. No husband to comfort her, no family to come to her aid and no sense of anything without her 17 year old son. Alice was in shock and couldn’t talk or breathe. Katie took Alice by the hand and walked her to the room where John was. Where John took his final breath on this earth and where her life seemed to end. Alice sat alone in the room with John and just cried. Damning God for taking her son. And then it happened.

From out of nowhere, someone said, “John was mine, not yours. I only gave him to you for a short time and now I have called him home.” Alice didn’t want to hear those words. She was alone and angry. Still damning God, she started making arrangements for her life alone and then she heard it again “John was mine, not yours. I only gave him to you for a short time and now I have called him home.” But this time, it was louder and the walls seemed to shake. She couldn’t believe it. Alice fought and fought and didn’t want to hear this voice.

To be continued……