Is there something you always carry on you, even if it’s seen better days?
The call came early in the morning. “Come now,” the hospital representative said. “Things don’t look good.”
Our daughter Miriam had been in a coma for four months after disastrous complications following childbirth. The chances of her recovering were miniscule, but we still prayed for a miracle. And now her body, artificially maintained by machines, was failing.
The entire family raced to the hospital in Lakewood, New Jersey, standing at her bedside or huddling in the hall as her vitals rose and fell and we beseeched Hashem to keep her with us. I was holding Miriam’s hand, urging her silently to rally, when suddenly I felt her press my hand. Then the monitors flat-lined.
We were ushered out of the room, dazed and weeping as we collapsed into chairs in the hallway. We stayed there another hour or so as we absorbed our horrific new reality and waited to learn the next step.
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