Angel Unaware (Luke 23:34)

I had never seen anyone die before. She lay before me like a torn up rag doll. Her fingers were purple and black as this “organ” called skin began to deteriorate. She was such a beautiful girl.

I didn’t realize that dying was such a process. I thought when you died, you just gave up your last breath and that was it. I met Pamela in front of the meeting hall I went to. Sometimes she sat alone but most of the time, there was somebody talking to her, usually a guy. She was so thin and her hands would shake when she lifted her cigarette to her petite pouty lips. Pamela had blonde hair and big blue eyes that would search your soul when she would look at you. There was a feeling that she was hoping someone could save her. She was giving up. Occasionally, her eyes would begin to get a little less dull, but most of the time they were glazed over from the opiates she was ingesting on a daily basis. We met in a meeting. She asked me to be her sponsor and I agreed although I was so new, I still felt inadequate. Her drug off choice had been the same as mine. Pain killers.

When I asked her how long she had been clean, she lied and told me 3 days. Having gotten clean from narcotic opiate painkillers myself, I knew there would be no way to be clean from those pills and be standing there so calmly. When I got clean, almost 23 months before, I had been a complete mess for at least two weeks in withdrawal, feeling like I was going to crawl out of my skin. Even though I knew she was not being honest with me, I agreed to sponsor her and told her to call me everyday. I heard from her occasionally but mostly I would catch her at a meeting.

It was obvious she was still using but at least she was calling other people in the fellowship and she was going to the meetings on a pretty regular basis, even if she couldn’t stay awake in them. I remembered that semi-conscious state all too well. I use to take so many pills; I couldn’t keep my head up. I understood wanting to be numb all the time. Pamela was one of the first people I ever admitted I had an eating disorder to. She confided in me that she couldn’t stop taking laxatives and throwing up. “Kara, I did it again. I told myself I wasn’t going to but I did. I tried to hide it from my mom, because she says if I don’t stop she’s going to take me to the hospital and I don’t want to go there again.” “I can’t stop”. My heart started to beat faster. She had this problem too. I told her I understood that I had struggled with it also. “Don’t worry about that right now”, I told her. “Just focus on staying clean. We can work on the other problem once you get off drugs.” One thing at a time. Don’t try and put yourself under too much pressure to stop all these behaviors at once.” These were the things I was telling myself so I just naturally rationalized her behavior the same way. I had no idea the deadly nature of bulimia and anorexia. I thought the only way it could become fatal is if you literally starved yourself to death. “I feel so ashamed”, she would share with me as she would sob on the other end of the phone as I would just hold the phone trying to think of something to say to console her.

It came to me to read her a page from my “Just Today” daily meditation book by Iyanla Vanzant, which often inspired me. I randomly opened up the page and it was about forgiveness. It was about our angels praying to our father in heaven “Father forgive them for they no not what they do”. It repeated over and over and Pamela began to chime in. Father forgive them, father forgive me for I know not what I do. She was laughing and crying all at the same time. She had found a little bit of relief in what we read. I heard just a hint of hope in her voice as I hung up with her that last time. Just days before, I had seen her standing in front of the building where our meetings had been held. Her mood could vacillate from lethargy to laughter back to anguish within the hour. This time when I looked in her eyes, it came to me to ask about her children. He is telling them lies about me. I’m afraid they will never forgive me. I feel so worthless. I felt a chill as I told her I knew God loved her and had great plans for her. The look she gave me at that moment sent chills up my spine. Not the kind of “God Bumps” we would often get when we felt the spirit or energy of truth or love but a deep dark kind of chill, the kind I used to feel in that house on Hickey. I realize now, that is the chill of death.

When the soul begins to disown the body, there is a coldness that begins to set it and if the spirit doesn’t come into acceptance that they must move on it’s almost as though the soul tries to occupy a space that isn’t theirs anymore. It was like looking into a black hole when I looked in her eyes that last time. I walked with her to the Mexican food place around the corner and watched her as she struggled to eat a few bites of her burrito. She was barely cognizant and stumbled as we walked back to the meeting. After we sat down, she nodded out and we had to have someone drive her home. That was the last time I saw her.

Halloween night, my son and I were shopping for a last minute costume at the mall. I had left my phone in the car and when I checked it, I had missed 9 calls, three from Pamela. I called her back and no answer. I had her mom’s number so I called her. As I waited for an answer, my heart was beating faster and faster. I had this feeling something was terribly wrong. “We are at the hospital, Kara”, her mom told me when she finally answered the phone. “Pamela got really sick and I rushed her to Scottsdale Memorial and now she is in a coma and the Dr’s don’t think she is going to come out of it. They’ve go tubes sticking in her all over the place.” “I’ll be right there, I assured her. I took my son to his fathers and called Donny, my boyfriend at the time. Donny knew Pamela also and had spoken to her once when she tried to slit her wrists. I remember feeling so jealous that he had given her any attention and ignored her for some time hoping she would just go away. She was so pretty and I was sure Donny was interested in her. When she asked me to be her sponsor, I figured that was God’s sick sense of humor to get me over myself. Donny met me at my house and we were off to go see her.

Pamela lay lifeless as we entered her room. Her mother just sat there watching her and seemed relieved we had come. The silence in the room was deafening and it was obvious she felt comforted by our being there. Can she hear us, I asked? I don’t know, her mom replied as if she had wondered the same thing. They say just because someone can’t speak or acknowledge you doesn’t mean they don’t know what’s going on or can’t hear you. I pulled up a chair on the other side of the bed from where Pam’s mom sat and just gazed at her. There were machines breathing for her but her heart had still beat on its own. There was a breathing tube and mask, multiple IV’s and other monitors attached to her fragile little body. She almost looked like a skeleton and yet was still so beautiful. What happened, did she overdose?

Actually, it wasn’t the Vicodan that made her sick, it was her bulimia. I froze. What? They are finishing the tests, but what they are saying is that she has damaged the lining of her stomach so badly with how she has abused laxatives and forcing her self to vomit that the stomach acid has actually eaten a hole through the lining and has gone into her blood stream. It is causing all her organs to shut down. The fingers on her left hand were almost completely purple and you could see it starting on her index finger on her right hand. Is there any chance she could come out of it? They don’t think so… less than 20%. As I listened to her mom tell me that it wasn’t the drugs that were killing her, but the eating disorder a million thoughts went through my head. How could I have been so stupid?! Here I was the one she picked to help her and I had encouraged her not to worry about throwing up. Why would I? I was doing it too. It wasn’t so bad in my mind, I didn’t think it could kill you. I could understand how anorexia could kill you, you would starve to death. I wasn’t starving myself, I was just controlling my calorie intake. I didn’t throw up everything, just what I wanted to…so I thought. Suddenly I felt so guilty for all the jealous thoughts I had toward her.

Here she was dying and it was probably because I was so selfish. If I had only reached out to her sooner or would have been more available to her instead of avoiding her calls when I was with Donny, she might not be in this condition. How could I have missed those last calls?! My voice mail was full so she couldn’t even leave a message. I knew I had failed her and now it was too late. There seemed nothing I could do to make this right.

I couldn’t even cry. My heart felt like ice. That would happen sometimes with really intensely emotional situations, I felt frozen and numb, except for the guilt. Pam’s mom and I sat a spoke for about an hour. We discussed the last couple of weeks and shared our last memories of the time we had spent with her. I asked her mother what had happed to Pam that made her so hopeless. Well it was her father, she explained. She never felt like he loved her. He would come home drunk and wake her up and yell at her, beat on her door, stuff like that. Once Pam walked in while he was raping me and I think that really affected her. I sat there beginning to feel really sad.

I just listened as she told me story after story of a little girl who was so traumatized no wonder she couldn’t comprehend a life worth living. When Pam was a little girl, maybe five or six, she had to wear special shoes. They were made out of wood and very expensive. Pam forgot them outside once and it rained. Well, they got wet and were ruined and for that Pam’s father killed her cat right in front of her. I don’t thing she could ever get over that. As I sat there, I began to feel this rage inside of me. How could someone do that?! How come Pam’s mom didn’t leave. I wanted to blame her and get her to admit her part but I just listened and tried not to let my anger show. Would you mind staying here while I go to get her brother, he’s flying in at 9 and I need to go to the airport, we should be back no later that 9:30? Sure, I agreed. Donny got back with some coffee from the cafeteria and I told him we needed to stay until her mom got back. Wow, her brother is coming in to say goodbye to his little sister. The sound of the heart, blood pressure and oxygen monitors were hypnotic.

I got a bible and started to read. I read psalms, through the valley of death I shall not fear. I only wanted to read the bible which was odd because I was at a place in my opinion of organized religion that made me questions everything about dogmatic, legalistic, fear based religion, namely Christianity, but I felt like that’s what Pam and her mom would want so I just read. I read psalms 23:4 "Yea though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." She really was walking through the valley of death and I was with her. In my mind I pictured this hallway with all the rooms of Pamela’s life. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be unable to talk or respond in anyway but I had the feeling she could hear me. I knew in my heart she was glad I was there but I also felt like she wanted to go. She wanted out of this body she had abused and loathed for so long. I could relate. It was only a little more than a year before that I came close myself.

I didn’t see any way out and yet I hated my life and what I’d become, I felt so hopeless. This could have very easily been me but Pam had crossed the line. She wasn’t coming back; it was just a matter of time. I kept getting the feeling that she felt trapped. She just wanted to go. I’m sure she was aware that the doctors had said that even if she did come out of it, one or both of her hands would have to be cut off as a result of the loss of circulation. She would be incapacitated.

As I finished reading one scripture, I felt compelled to read another. I felt this urgency to give her as much as I could. Her spirit seemed to be eating it up. I read Corinthians I 13: 1-13 about Love. I prayed over her and reminded her that she was forgiven, that she would soon get to go and for her to forgive herself, that her children would be okay. I watched as her chest rose and declined rhythmically to the beat of the breathing machine. The monitors chimed in reporting her heart beat, blood pressure and oxygen levels. I kept watching the clock.

Soon her mother and brother would be here from the airport. I wondered what her brother might say to her. I didn’t remember her mentioning him but she didn’t reveal a lot about her family. She was so out of it most of the time; it was hard to have any type of a lengthy conversation with her. She hadn’t been close with many people since she came into our twelve step fellowship. Unfortunately, she found a couple people who just wanted to use her. Jake was one that was still using himself. Wendy and Jake would “hang out”occasionally. She would disappear with him during our after meetings. It is so sad how we seem to be attracted to what is bad for us. Once, early in recovery, I had a dream about a snake and a lizard. I bought my son a lizard for his kindergarten graduation. It lived in his room in a glass cage with a screened lid. In this dream I walked into his room only to this lizard tattered and torn, and missing one of its legs. The screened lid had become dismantled and the snake managed to get into the cage and attack the lizard.

As I watched the snake in its attempt to devour its prey, I acted quickly by reaching my hand into the cage and removing the lizards body from the grip of the snakes mouth. I through the snake away, put the lizard back down in its cage and secured the lid. I saw that even though it was missing one of its limbs and appeared pretty mangled, it was still alive so I left the room. I got this feeling of death. The same feeling I was feeling right now with Pamela. She was in deaths grip. There was nothing I could do but watch. I couldn’t reach in and save her no matter how much I wanted to. I was learning about the truly deadly nature of this “disease”. My dream ended when I walked back into my son’s room only to find the lizard crawling up toward a tear in the screen not big enough for the snakes head to fit through but large enough for the lizard’s body. I was dismayed as I watched the lizard crawl up toward this hole trying to find the snake again. I was angry. I had saved the lizard and it barely survived. I made sure it was safe from the snake and I couldn’t understand why it was seeking the very thing that would kill it.

What was the appeal of the snake? It was like the lizard was hypnotized and entranced by the illusion of freedom the snake offered even if it meant death. The lizard was willing to die just to escape its cage. Maybe that is why as recovering addicts, we seek a spiritual awakening. I didn’t know that the prison of my life could be transformed by God only if I had the willingness and faith to wait. Our diseased thinking tells us there is no other way out. The idea of death becomes more appealing than feeling trapped in our lives. At one point, I saw freedom in drugs. They freed me from the prison of my emotions that contained me with so much anxiety and suffering; but only temporarily and less effectively as my disease progressed. Without the tools I have been taught in the 12 step fellowship, I would have never known there was another way. As I sit and watch Pamela, I realize that she had sought the snake one too many times and this time would be her last, it was just a matter of time. As I continued to read scripture, I kept glancing at the clock on the wall. It was 9:25 and soon her brother would be here. I put the bible down and just started talking to Pam. “Everything is going to be okay” I told her. “You will be free soon”. Suddenly the monitors started making noise. I looked at Donny a little startled. What’s wrong with those things, how come they’re starting to make so much noise?

Soon one of the nurses appeared at the door and then another. Her vitals are starting to go down. I watched the nurses face as she studied the numbers on the monitors. We had been schooled earlier by Pam’s mom, what the different numbers meant. Her oxygen level, heart rate and blood pressure needed to stay at certain levels for Pam to be alive. The beeps and colors of the digital numbers on the monitors became part of Pamela. The tube stuck in her throat pumping oxygen into her lungs was like my hand in the lizards cage trying to save it, only a temporary solution. As the deep black purple color spread through the rest of her fingers and hands, and the crevices on her face deepened even in only a couple of hours, it was very apparent to me she was not improving. It was just a matter of time before her body would completely give up. My idea of death was transforming as I watched her deteriorate. This death was a process not an event and we were part of it. I felt so honored to be there. In my heart, I knew she was glad I was there too, although I felt like I had failed her. This was the most time I had ever spent with her.

I had gotten to know her better now as she finally surrendered than all the times before. “She is starting to go”, one of the nurses admitted. At that instant, I felt this surge of energy through my entire body. “Not yet”, I said. Her brother isn’t here yet. I looked at the clock; it was exactly 9:30pm. Inside I knew that Pamela had waited until now to go. She had heard us talking. She had heard that her brother would be here by 9:30pm and now she wanted to go. I felt her urgency to leave. “Pam, you can’t go yet. Your brother isn’t here yet, he is flying here to say good bye to you. Just hold on a little bit longer.” As I said that her heart rate went back up but her oxygen levels were still too low. Her blood pressure was still dropping as I examined the monitors. “Pam, you’re going to need to get your oxygen level up… and your blood pressure.” They started to rise. “Up, up, up, get them up” There was this “life coach” inside of me that started to do her job. “You can do it. You can stay alive just a little bit longer” By now there were several nurses standing in the room and by the door. “I have never seen anything like this before”, “This is amazing”, another sighed as they all watched the monitors respond to us. Pam and I were connected at a very deep level.

I could feel her. I could feel her wanting to leave, but I felt her willingness to follow the lead of the spirit within me that was coaching her. It was all she could do to hold on. “I’m so proud of you, Pam. You are doing it! You are choosing life, right now!” I knew in my heart, that she got it. She finally got to experience herself choosing to live, even if it would only be a short time longer. I could feel her laughter in tears as she responded to my report of her vitals. This went on for about 45 minutes. I was exhilarated and exhausted.

By now, most of the staff on that floor had visited the doorway to witness this amazing testimony of life and connection. Her vitals were responding in direct proportion to my words. When her oxygen levels, heart rate and blood pressure would get too low, I would coach them up and they were responding. She was giving me a gift too. It was almost as if she was saying; I know I didn’t really give you a chance to help me before but I want you to know how much I appreciate you believing in me. I will do this for you, so you won’t feel so disappointed. I knew that Pam could hear me. It wasn’t my voice she heard. It was my heart. With each word I spoke, my heart was what connected with her. It was the intention of my heart filled with the Holy Spirit that was communicating with her and it was undeniable. Finally, around 10:15 pm her brother and mother walked into the room obviously rushing to get back. I’m sorry we’re late she explained. Everything had been delayed. The plane, the traffic… “We got here as soon as we could”. “Why are there so many people in here”? Then they told her. This has been the most amazing thing we have ever seen. This woman has helped Pam to stay alive.

They explained briefly about Pam’s vitals and what had happened. I looked at Pam’s mother and brother; “It would be really good for you to say anything you want to say to her now. She wants to leave but waited for you”. Tears immediately flooded both of their eyes, I looked at Pam and said “Goodbye and good job, I’ll see you again someday.” Donny and I stepped out of the room as Pam’s brother pulled out the letter he had written to her on the plane ride there. We stood outside the room while they said their last goodbyes. I heard Pam’s mom comfort her; “Go with Jesus, honey. Just go with Jesus” Then the nurse turned off the oxygen machine, the monitors chimed their last beeps, slowing down to one constant and soon she was gone.

At the funeral, there was a picture of Pamela, her children and her dogs. She had been a cheerleader and honor roll student. She had such a beautiful smile but there was sadness in her eyes you could notice if you looked closely. Everyone loved her. They played the song “Wind beneath my wings” and I finally cried. As we left the memorial service, her brother gave me a hug. “Thank you so much for what you did. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t been able to tell her I loved her while she was still alive. I really needed to read her what I wrote in that letter. I cannot express how much I appreciate that.” I told him; "It was God and your welcome". It was just as much a gift to me.
She truly was an angel… unaware.