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There are two types of hospital waiting rooms: the ones thoughtfully designed to offer comfort and solace to those anxiously waiting, and the ones that seem more of an afterthought, stuck into some forgotten corner and furnished with leftover vinyl chairs.
I was waiting with my youngest nephew Tim in a nice one in Georgia. His nearly-two-year-old son Brandon was in a long, complicated surgery for craniosynostosis (a rare birth defect occurring when the fibrous joints between a baby’s skull bones fuse too early, before the brain is fully formed).
The boy’s mother Kristina had taken the baby to three different doctors before the third doctor closely examined the tiny child and confirmed Brandon’s mother’s intuition.
I had made the journey to be with the young parents during the day-long operation. Tim and I were seated next to each other; an anxious silence bonded us. Too nervous to read year-old People magazines, we each randomly scanned the room.
Suddenly Tim turned, his eyes wide, and whispered:
“Did you see that?"
“Yes,” I whispered back.
“That was Gram!”
A small woman with a mop of short white hair had crossed the room, and she was in size and shape and form and feature the exact image of my mother, who had died five years earlier.
Tim and I both knew it was an angel—it was Gram, a nurse for her entire life. She had come down to check on us and to make sure that her youngest great-grandchild came through his delicate surgery successfully.
The waiting room brightened, tension eased, and not long after the surgeon appeared smiling in his scrubs to announce everything had gone exceptionally well.
And our bright angel was now nowhere to be seen.
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