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I leaned over the hospital bed in which my 18-year-old son, Art, lay in a comatose state that seemed like death. Tubes fed him through the nose; a machine breathed for him, breaking the harsh stillness of the room with its mechanical gasps.
I moved my lips close to Art's ear and whispered, "Honey, I had a dream last night, so beautiful that it seemed real. Two magnificent angels stood by your bed. It means you will be healed, I know it."
Did he hear me? Can the soul hear when the body is asleep? Art didn't move, and didn't acknowledge my words. If only he would open his eyes! Just that, Lord.
Before the accident two nights earlier, this limp form under the stiff hospital bedsheets had been a strapping high school senior, star captain of his football team and the finest son a mother could ever want. Proud of the body God had given him, Art didn't drink or smoke. He held strong values and went to church regularly. His dream was to play professional football and set a good example for other young people.
But now doctors held out little hope that he would walk or talk or do anything productive again. It was as if Art had gone on and left his broken body behind. Could that be true?
On the evening of January 1, 1989, Art had attended a dance with some friends. When his father and I went to bed that night, a cold rain beat at the windows. I am usually a sound sleeper, but at about 1:00 A.M. I awoke with a start and shook my husband. "Arthur," I said, my heart racing, "I'm afraid something terrible has happened to our boy." Before I could get back to sleep, a call came from St. Vincent's Hospital. Art had been driving his friends home when a pickup truck turned into the side of his car, slamming it into a tree. One of Art's passengers died. The others weren't badly hurt. But Art lay close to death in the emergency room.
I will never forget the panic of that night, the dread and the sense of helplessness as my boy fought for life. After Arthur and I threw on some clothes we raced in our car to St. Vincent's. Along with some friends and family members we had alerted, we huddled together and prayed unceasingly while doctors worked on Art. The news from the operating room was grim. Art's windpipe and chest were nearly crushed from the impact with the steering wheel. Most worrisome was the injury to his brain.
"All that's saved him so far," one doctor told us, "is his strong athlete's body. But the area around his brain stem is so severely damaged he might never regain consciousness."
At about 5:00 A.M. Dr. Frank A. Redmond finally came to us and said Art's condition was stabilized and he would be moved into the intensive care unit. He revealed that on at least one occasion that night Art had been clinically dead but they were able to revive him. "I did a lot of praying," Dr. Redmond admitted. "Something kept your boy alive."
Eventually they let us see Art in ICU. I tiptoed to his bedside. To see him so still, to see the breathing tube in his trachea, his closed and swollen eyes—my own flesh and blood—it was just devastating. I collapsed into my husband's arms and sobbed. "We can't give up," he whispered, holding me tight. "We have to keep praying for a miracle."
Continued on page 2: 'Even if your son walks up, he won't know who you are...' »
