The Power of a Praying Parent

Today is the six month anniversary of the ambulance ride from hell, the day Parker went into septic shock and had his first surgery in the middle of the night. Sherrie, one of the nurses from IMC, rode in the ambulance with us, and kept us somewhat sane. Parker and I both will always be grateful for her steady compassion. She was our rock.

I am trying to write about that day for the book, but am struggling, so instead I want to bring your attention to the photo to the left and ask for your help.

On April 2nd, when I left work in the middle of the day and flew back to Austin, when they were beginning to tell us the seriousness of Parker's illness, I had a very strange thing happen to me. I had made it a point not to talk to anyone on the plane about why I was going to Austin, I was afraid to talk about it and fall apart and be stuck 40,000' in the air, flipping out. So before I got on the plane I took big, deep breaths and extra airplane drugs and kept my mouth shut.

As we were exiting the plane in Austin, I saw a woman sitting in a seat about ten rows ahead, facing backwards, looking at me. I could only see her from the eyes up and she bore a startling resemblance to Dovie, my ex-husband's mother who was surely one of God's busiest angels.
As I got closer to her, this woman who I had never met before, stood up and looked at me with a sad smile on her face. She held out a book, the one in the photo, and said, "I think you need this book... read it, it will help."

I was fairly stunned, and paused for a moment to thank her, not really sure what to say, but aware of the people behind me who were waiting for me to move. So I thanked her quickly and left, clutching the book in my hands, and rushed off to the hospital.

She was right, that book helped. It kept me upright during some really dark moments. I held on to it, along with Critter, I propped it up next to my chair when I slept in the ICU waiting room, read passages from it, posted scripture from it on this blog, and thought a lot about who the person was who gave it to me, and how did she know?

It was a day or two before I was able to open it up, but it was a week before I found the photo tucked inside. It is the photo of a handsome man, maybe about 40 years old, smiling, on a sail boat.

That photo torments me to this day, because I am worried it was the adult child of the woman who gave me the book, and maybe he had died. Maybe it was the only good photo she had, and now I have it and I don't know how to get it back to her. There was a phone number written in the book, and the words Jordan Plymouth. For the longest time I thought that must be the man's name, but eventually I found out that is a hospital in Plymouth, MA.

I tried calling that hospital and gave them the date the woman was flying from Baltimore to Austin, but they couldn't help me without a name. I gave them the phone number written in the book, but they said they couldn't trace it without a name, or if I wanted to, I could send the photo and they could see if anyone remembered him. But I didn't want to let go of the photo in case I could find the woman myself. I mean, what if the hospital lost the photo?

So if anyone has any thoughts on how I can track this woman down, to thank her, and to return the photo to her, please let me know. If I were her, I'd want it back. Not to mention, I want to tell her that Parker lived, and I survived, and her gift helped. And I also want to tell her I know God was working through her, and how lucky she was to have been chosen. How lucky I was, too.