Advent IV: Room 71

There was nothing more the nurses and doctor could do. He’d soon be a number added to the other 300,000, but to his wife and children he was so much more. The machines and tubes were unhooked and an orderly pushed his bed down the hall to Room 71. It was the room reserved for one purpose. It was where his family would finally be able to see him, touch him, and say good-bye. It was an all too familiar liturgy, but the staff never took it for granted. 

Clinging to one another, the family crossed the hall from the elevator and entered Room 71. His daughter gasped as she saw the shell of the man who used to hold her on his spacious lap. Her daughter, his granddaughter, placed the drawing she’d done of them walking in the woods on the blanket draping his legs. His wife mustered what little strength she had to break the silence. Reaching for her husband’s hand, she thanked him for their many years together. She spoke of their first date when he spilled the red wine all over their food because he was so nervous, the moment they held their first born in this same hospital, and their honeymoon trip to England which they could only afford ten years after their wedding. The others around the room added their own memories and said what they loved most about the man lying before them.

Because it was Christmas, the moment felt particularly cruel. The season of joy was everything but. The season of light was unusually dark. Where was God? Couldn’t God perform a Christmas miracle? The man’s hand suddenly gripped his wife’s before releasing and turning cold. 

In a way that made no sense to any of them, a strange peace filled the room and wrapped its arms around everyone assembled. He had gone, but gone where? All they could do was say good-bye, but it felt as if he was now saying hello. Room 71 had become a door to someplace else for him, and, because of that, for them, as well.

Still huddled together in the elevator, someone uttered words from long ago: “Those who walk in darkness have seen a great light.” The words didn’t dry the tears, only transformed them, but that was miraculous enough.