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Published on 09/28/1998 All articles from this issue

Samaritans come in all colors, shapes and sizes

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By Mary Cristy

A View from the Hills

In late July the sudden, serious illness of our first-born son took us to Denver. For five harrowing weeks we lived with the terror every parent harbors deep in the subconscious, where fear at the prospect of injury or loss of a child lies embedded.

Our ordeal ended happily as crisis periods passed with visits to the hospital's beautiful chapel; and the endless telling of my rosary persuaded us that fervent prayer is heard and answered.

Stories like ours are enacted hourly in the world of the sick, and only when we are bidden to their bedsides do we understand, and partake fully of their anguish.

Though Cris and I have known adversity, I prefer to report on life's lightness, leaving the tragic and prurient to dramatists, or sensationalists, as the case may be. As a hummingbird gravitates toward nectar, I'm drawn to stories that lift the heart and leave it singing. In Denver we found them in the compassion of strangers who became friends.

The list is long. There was a chance encounter with one Carol Saloranta who drove us to the hospital on our first day and carried my luggage downstairs on my last. Small world. We left with the name of her sister who lives just over the crest from us, and promised to phone when Carol visits our Hills at Thanksgiving.

Nurse's aide, plump, lovable Yvonne Webb, made our son her special charge, eased his pain in myriad ways, and proved herself adept at going the extra mile, literally, when she drove me to and from the hospital the day a cab driver failed to show. Her ready smile and bubbling laughter cheered us, and no one rejoiced more whole-heartedly than Yvonne when our son recovered.

There was the young cabbie from Queens who shared stories of his family and the mother who "cooks up a storm" when he goes home. When I paid my $4 fare with two tens and three singles, he noted the error, returned the larger bills and cautioned me to "'Be more careful with your money."

There was Adam Cohen, an account executive and fellow tenant in the building where our son and fiancee reside, who urged me to call on him if I needed help; and Richard and Leah Garry, the building's managers who tended the children's garden, took me on several errands, and brought in a chicken dinner when our son came home from the hospital.

Local friends, our son's fiancée, and longtime Denver friends were loving and unfailingly supportive, as were our families. But most of the above-named were strangers, like the hospital cafeteria server who enfolded me in her ebony arms, laid a soft, warm cheek on mine and whispered, "He's in God's hands," when I cried.

And there was De Marico Slaughter, the boyish concierge at Adam's Mark Hotel where I spent my last night in Denver, who took me to tea on the 22nd floor so I might see the lights of the city, and brought flowers to my room "to cheer you," he said, in parting.

We question God's plan, rant and rave at fate when catastrophe strikes, only to find the way opens as pain is mitigated through the goodness of those with whom our paths would not have crossed, and who we would never have had the privilege to know but for the mountain we were given to climb.

Footnote: Cris had to leave after the first week to work on pressing editorial commitments at home, while Mary stayed on in Denver.

Mary Cristy is a Los Altos Hills-based free-lance writer and longtime contributor to the Town Crier.