Thursday, August 19, 2021, began like any other day since Rachel’s hospitalization. Abigail happily played. Our family contacted the charge nurse for the latest update on Rachel and we poured over any changes that were made on her online hospital portal. Our oldest son Ryan was working in the Orlando area and Face Timed us to keep in touch. Abigail received a sweet gift from a friend following our family’s journey. It was a big variety pack of every color of nail polish a little girl could want! That was right up her alley since Rachel had been selling self-adhesive nail polish strips before her hospitalization. That little three-year-old knew exactly what to do!
Shortly after noon I received a call from the hospital that would change our lives forever. The nurse on the other end of the line identified herself as being the nurse over Rachel at that moment and quickly added “this would be a good time to come say your goodbyes if you would like to.” I could hardly believe what I was being told. “Say our goodbyes?” “If I would like to?” The room spun and I felt sick. Jeff contacted one of Rachel’s friends to stay with Abigail while we raced to the hospital. I called my parents who were over five hours away and they began the trip to be with us. My son Ryan who was working in Orlando left immediately to come meet us at the hospital. My daughter Nicole and her husband Alex also rushed to meet us. Meanwhile Jeff and I along with our youngest son Nicholas, Fabio, and my sister-in-law Chessie drove as quickly as we could to the hospital.
Every day I put at least one update on Rachel’s condition on social media. I did not put this latest update up. There was no time for that. We were allowed to enter the main entrance when we arrived at the hospital. We were told we could go to ICU two at a time. Nicholas, only seventeen years old at the time, raced up the stairs to see his sister. I had seen Rachel a couple times when the hospital broke protocol and allowed me to come and see my daughter through the sliding glass door to her room. They would provide me a phone to speak, sing, or pray for her while a receiver was propped up by her head. Nicholas had only seen Rachel through Zoom calls during this ordeal. I desperately tried to catch up to him but by the time I made it to Rachel’s room, he was already standing there staring at his oldest sister with silent tears streaming down his face. I had only seen Nick cry as a teenager one other time and that was the day when Rachel told him she was pregnant and he would be an Uncle. Those were happy and grateful tears. These were tears of shock, disbelief, and helplessness. I was angry with the staff for allowing him to come up without a parent but there was nothing I could do. Jeff joined us as we all just gazed at Rachel lying helplessly attached to the machines. We found out that our friend and Sunday School teacher, Bro. Oscar, who was on the same floor had passed away that very morning.
We all took turns speaking to Rachel and praying that this was not really happening. Jeff and I had time with her through the glass as well as Fabio, Nicole, Nicholas, and Chessie, getting to speak those last words to her while memorizing every detail of the scene. My parents were allowed to speak to Rachel through that special phone and give their last expressions of love and prayer for her. Desirae, Rachel’s dear friend who became family to us all, was allowed to speak to Rachel as well. I went downstairs to the lobby. It was eerily quiet. After all, during the pandemic, no visitors were allowed. We were joined by our Presbyter and his wife as well as a surprise visitor. A Pastor friend from a nearby Church plant was there. How did he get in? How did he even know? Later this Pastor, John Michael Gibson, told me that it was “nothing short of the Holy Spirit.” Evidently, he had not been able to attend the previous Sunday night’s parking lot prayer and praise rally and felt led to go pray in the parking lot right then. Imagine his surprise when the staff opened the door and let him in! Similarly, was the situation of my sister-in-law Chessie being with us since she lived several hours away but literally heard God tell her “GO NOW!”
There was no way on earth I could fathom not being able to touch my Rachel, stroke her hair, or see those sparkly blue eyes while she was still on earth. Strings were pulled and the hospital CMO came to visit me. He explained that there was no way I could enter Rachel’s room. I begged. I pleaded. I explained that I was with my daughter for her first breath on earth and I had to be with her for her last. I was filled with a sense of “urgent boldness” to be inside the room with Rachel. He looked at the nurse and instructed “give her ten minutes.” Quickly I was suited in a hospital gown, mask, and gloves. But before I entered the room the nurse told me that I needed to tell Rachel that it was “okay to go.” Seriously?! It was my job to protect my children and keep them alive, not encourage them to die. I could not believe my ears so I just got in that room as quickly as I could. I stroked her arms and her hair. Since Rachel was still under sedation and paralytics, I gently opened her eyes and stared right into those beautiful sparkly blue mirrors of her soul. “There you are!” I exclaimed to her. I sang “You are My Sunshine.” I sang “Here in Your Presence” which had been her favorite song. All the while the nurse paced in the room with me so I told her “You can turn around if you don’t want to see but I am going to anoint my daughter with oil.” I reached into my jeans pocket to pull out my hidden “weapon.” I gently rubbed oil on Rachel’s forehead and prayed for our miracle and I told her to wake up. The nurse walked behind me and asked “Did you tell her yet?” I made sure to tell Rachel as clearly as I could so that anyone who needed to hear me would “Honey, I’m supposed to tell you that it’s okay to go if you want, but if you don’t want to, fight because we are all fighting out here for you.” Then my time was up. I left the hospital gown and other paraphernalia in the special waste can and exited.
While our family met in the lobby with our Presbyter, Ryan came rushing in. I have no idea how he got to us so quickly but I was so thankful he did. He and Nicholas began taking the stairs to the second-floor ICU area when that “urgent boldness” inside of me returned and insisted that I step ahead of Nicholas this time and go back upstairs to be with Ryan as he saw Rachel. I truly thought that I would be able to come to the waiting area after walking Ryan into ICU so Nicholas could go back inside.
At this point, in hindsight, everything seemed somewhat “orchestrated.” After all, during this part of the pandemic being placed on a ventilator almost assuredly came with a high mortality rate. As Ryan and I stood staring at Rachel and asking the nurse questions, a respiratory therapist brought a chair and encouraged me to sit down. I thought that it was strange since I hadn’t asked for one. The attending nurse then went into Rachel’s room, touched something on her left shoulder, and said “Rachel, your Mom and your other brother are here to see you.” Immediately everything on the telemetry machine plummeted and Rachel’s heart stopped beating on this earth. “Oh my God! Oh my God!” I kept crying this out over and over with my hands clasped tightly over my mouth to stifle the screams coming from deep within me. The nurse made a crude hand gesture of a line over her own throat. Then she walked toward the glass and held up a “heart” shape made with her fingers. Ryan held me close to his side and we sobbed as we realized we had just literally watched Rachel die.
Rachel looked the same though. Her body was still breathing on the ventilator. Evidently, it was required for two people to “call it” for a person to be declared dead and the ventilator turned off. During this nightmare, the staff would not allow us to contact our family downstairs. Just one floor below us everyone thought Rachel was still alive. Finally, the respiratory therapist indicated that she was going to be the second person to call the death. She entered Rachel’s room, gently removed the tracheostomy apparatus, came to me, and said “Go tell your baby goodbye.” That’s all I needed. I was suited up again in the hospital gown, mask, and gloves then allowed once again to be with my Rachel, my firstborn. I tried my best to pick her up. I desperately wanted to hold her against my chest and rest her head on my shoulder. I opened her eyes again but this time the sparkle was gone. I knew that this was now just a shell that once held my daughter.
What seemed like an eternity later, we were allowed to tell our family who had been waiting downstairs and they quickly joined us in our initial grief. We watched and waited until just like that, 31 days after being wheeled into room #22, Rachel’s body was wheeled out.
Rachel's Voice 