A Treasury of Miracles for Women by Karen Kingsbury

of protection around Ted and the house. Wasn't it possible that the man on the roof was an angel?
    Barbara thinks so to this day. “He was an angel,” she says. “An angel of mercy sent to save the greatest gift Te d had ever given me.”

The Miracle of Good-Bye
    M iranda Thompson sat stiffly in the chair beside her mother's bed at the Clark County Nursing Home in Ridgefield, Washington, and watched a dozen birds fluttering outside the window.
    “You know what they say about birds, don't you?” the sixty-seven-year-old Miranda asked softly, turning toward her own daughter, Katy, who had joined her that after noon.
    “No, Mom, what do they say?”
    “When birds gather outside the window of someone who's sick, it means the Lord is ready to call them home.”
    Miranda held her mother's hand and stroked the wrinkled skin gently. Her mother, Esther, was eighty-six and in a coma. Doctors didn't expect her to live out the week.
    “I love you, Mother,” Miranda said as tears threatened to spill onto her cheeks. Then she gazed up, closing her eyes as if to shut out the pain of death.
Lord, help me accept this. Help me to let my mother go home to you.
    They waited nearly an hour until it was time for din ner, and when the elderly woman showed no signs of re sponding, Miranda and Katy rose from their seats and slowly left the room.
    “I'll be coming back tomorrow,” Miranda said as the two women walked out toward their cars in the parking lot.
    “I'll be here too, Mom,” Katy said. “I'll meet you here after lunch.”
    Miranda drove home in silence. The sadness she felt demanded quiet rather than the sounds of carefree music. Miranda sighed and thought about her mother's decline. Tw o years earlier the woman had been in good health, living independently in Seattle. Then she began struggling to manage on her own, and finally she had agreed to come live with Miranda and her husband, Bill, in the Ridgefield area.
    “I don't want to be a bother,” she had told Miranda upon her arrival. “You just go about your business and I'll be fine.”
    Esther stuck by her words and never imposed on the life Miranda and Bill led. Esther had a sweet disposition and a happy outlook contagious to those around her. Many afternoons she would sit outside watching Miranda work on her flower garden or making conversation with Bill.
    Two years passed quickly, and it seemed Esther might live to be a hundred.
    Then Miranda and Bill took a two-week vacation to Boston. During that time, the older woman began having a series of mini-strokes, and Miranda was finally called back home when her mother was admitted to the hospital and placed in intensive care.
    Tw o days into her hospital stay, a nurse entered Esther's room and accidentally gave her the wrong medication. The drug slowed Esther's heart and brain activity and sent her into a deep coma. The doctor was honest with Miranda about what had happened.
    “The nurse will be required to stay away from the hos pital for two weeks without pay and she will be admon ished,” he said gently. “Still, it was an accident and one that any of us might have made.”
    “What does it mean for my mother?” Miranda asked anxiously. “When will she come out of the coma?”
    The doctor sighed. “That's just it, Mrs. Thompson. Be cause of her condition and her age, she might not come out of it. I expect she might go downhill rather rapidly at this point.”
    Miranda nodded, clutching Bill's hand and trying not to cry. “But if she comes out of it today or tomorrow, she still might make a recovery. Is that right?”
    “I don't think it's likely, Mrs. Thompson. I'm trying to be as honest as possible.”
    When her mother remained in the coma for four days, the hospital staff decided there was nothing more they could do for her. At that point Miranda made arrangements for her mother to be transferred to the Clark County Nursing Home.
    “Mother, I hate to have you living away from us when you're feeling so