Last September in this column, after quoting some of what Sue Monk Kidd had written in her book Firstlight regarding ". . . how important it is to create it (beauty) in the midst of ugliness, barrenness, and sorrow," I mentioned that I might be the middleman for two of her stories as a young nurse and a young mother. Well here’s the young nurse story retold.

That story had reappeared in the March 1995 issue of Guideposts on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of that publication. It was titled, "Don’t Let It End This way" and is retold here using some of her own words.

One January evening she, a young nurse went to check up on a new patient "all alone. A man strangely silent about his family." She noted as she walked into his room that he "looked up eagerly, but averted his eyes when he saw it was only me." The stethoscope revealed a "strong, slow even beating" which was just what she wanted to here as he had just suffered a heart attack a few hours earlier.

After she had examined him, he asked with tears in his eyes if she would call his daughter and tell her what had happened as he lived alone and she was the only family he had. As he was telling her this, that young nurse noted that his respiration suddenly speeded up. After increasing his oxygen delivery she assured him that she would. With an increased sense of urgency and tenseness in his face he asked her if she could do it right away. Before she left the room he asked for pencil and paper, which she dug out of her pocket. He thanked her for that.

She then called the daughter and told her name and that she was a registered nurse calling about her father who had been "admitted tonight with a slight heart attack and –" She was interrupted with a scream that startled her. "‘No’ she screamed into the phone, startling me. ‘He’s not dying is he?’" The author wrote that, "It was more a painful plea than a question."

She then reassured the daughter that her father’s condition was stable at the moment and then there was silence for a moment. Then the daughter told the nurse, "You must not let him die!" with a "voice so utterly compelling that my hand trembled on the phone." The young nurse reassured her that her father was "getting the best of care." To which the daughter responded, "But you don’t understand. My daddy and I haven’t spoken in almost a year."

She told the nurse the two of them had a terrible argument on her twenty-fifth birthday over her boyfriend. After running out of the house, her last words to her father were "I hate you."

The daughter had told that nurse who later became an author that, "All these month’s I’ve wanted to go to him for forgiveness." From the nurse’s end of the phone she could hear the daughter’s voice crack and her agonizing sobs. And the nurse too hearing that, felt the tears burning in her eyes thinking about, "A father and a daughter, so lost to each other, and thought about her own father and how long it was since she had told him, "I love you." And while Janie, the daughter "struggled to control her tears, that young nurse said a silent prayer, "Please God, let this daughter find forgiveness."

Janie then told the nurse that she would be there in a half hour.

Sue, the nurse then "tried to busy myself with a stack of charts" but couldn’t concentrate and knew she had to go back to Room 712, which she did nearly on the run. When she got there "Mr. Williams lay unmoving. There was no pulse." Her response, "Code ninety-nine! Room seven-twelve!" . . . and starting mouth-to-mouth respiration . . . and a prayer, "Oh, God, his daughter is coming. Don’t let it end this way."

Quickly all who were summoned were there . . . and another quick prayer with her own heart pounding, "God, don’t let it end like this. Not in bitterness and hatred."

But all the medical team couldn’t revive him and the young nurse was asking herself how she could face the daughter. When she left the room she saw that a doctor had already told the daughter and that she was "slumped against the wall."

"Such pathetic hurt reflected from her face. Such wounded eyes. She knew. The doctor had told her her father was gone." She continued, "I took her hand and led her into the nurses’ lounge . . . neither saying a word . . ." and then, "‘I’m so, so sorry,’ I said. It was pitifully inadequate."

The daughter then said, "I never hated him, you know. I loved him." Another brief and silent prayer from the young nurse, "God, please help her."

The daughter then got up suddenly and turned toward the nurse saying that she wanted to see her dad. "Outside the door I squeezed her hand, wishing she would change her mind . . . huddled together Janie leaned over the bed and buried her face into the sheets. // I tried not to look at her, at this sad, sad good-bye. I backed against the bedside table. My hand fell upon a scrap of yellow paper. I picked it up. I read: My dearest Janie, I forgive you. I pray you will also forgive me. I know that you love me. I love you too. Daddy."

That Sue Kidd, the nurse who later became Sue Monk Kidd and an author, concluded that story by telling her readers, "The note was shaking in my hands as I thrust it toward Janie. She read it once. Then twice. Her tormented face grew radiant. Peace began to glisten in her eyes. She hugged the scrap of paper to her breast. // ‘Thank you, God,’ I whispered, looking up at the window. A few crystal stars blinked through the blackness. A snowflake hit the window and melted away. // Life seemed as fragile as a snowflake on the window. But thank you, God, that relationships, sometimes fragile as snowflakes, can be mended. // I crept from the room and hurried to the phone. I would call my father. I would say, ‘I love you.’"

That was a heart-touching and heart-warming story and that no doubt was why it was reprinted in Guideposts for their fiftieth anniversary, and then again in Firstlight. Valid questions are: Would the story have ended that way had that young nurse not said those silent prayers for that other young woman? Would there even have been a story written if the message of the father’s forgiveness and wish to be forgiven had not been found?

The question about the prayers can’t be proven one way or the other, but those relatively few words, forgiving and asking for forgiveness, on a piece of paper read after his death obviously made an enormous difference to the daughter – as well as the nurse who was caught up in that reconciliation. It is a pretty safe assumption that had that note not been written, or even not been found, there would have been no such feeling of relief at such a time of sorrow.