Hope and Healing

Fairy-Godmother’s Wand
It was December, the hospital was festive, decorated with a huge Christmas tree adorned with shiny red ornaments and elegant red velvet bows. Pots of Poinsettias decorated the counters. Outside it was snowing. I fought back my anxiety, felt my racing pulse and the lump inside my heart as I walked through the corridor toward the elevators to visit my husband who was critically ill. He had coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, and was fighting to recover from surgery for kidney cancer. The surgeon had hoped to remove the cancer from the kidney, but because of the cancer mass, had to remove the kidney. Now, my husband was on dialysis.
Wanting to do absolutely anything I could do to cheer my husband, I held my battery operated fairy-godmother’s wand in my hand. I had bought it at a costume shop for Halloween. I figured everyone could use a fairy godmother’s wand, especially one with twinkling lights. I prefer angels, but it is hard to find angels. Then, in front of me was a tall gorgeous young woman with long flowing blond hair, dressed in white clothing, resembling an angel, but without wings. As we stepped inside the elevator, I sensed her sadness and gently asked, “Do you need a fairy-godmother’s wand?” as I waved the blinking wand toward her.
Tears rolled down her cheeks as she nodded in the affirmative. As we stepped off the elevator I reached out to comfort her and listen. She had two small children and was going through a traumatic divorce. Her mother was in the hospital for kidney failure and had been waiting for a transplant for five years, this was just one of her many crisis visits to the hospital. “My mother is tired of fighting for her life. She wants to give up—go off dialysis—and die, but she just turned fifty. My father is dead—I don’t want to lose my mother. I feel so hopeless.”
I put my arms around her as she sobbed, then she wiped her tears with a tissue. “Would you like to take my fairy-godmother’s wand?” I asked. “You can return it to my husband’s room later this evening.”
Several hours later my husband was delighted and surprised to see a beautiful “angel” with long blond hair tumbling down her shoulders, all dressed in white, walk into his room. She was carrying a flashing fairy-god-mother’s wand. After greeting my husband, she asked how he was feeling. “This was wonderful,” she said, as she handed me the wand. “Mother loved the wand. She even laughed. We took turns waving it around the room and granting wishes for the nurses who were coming in and out. She granted me wishes—I waved wishes over her head, and we giggled. Mother now has hope and the will to live.”

from my book "Defeating Depression & Beating the Blues."