“Ma'am, my mother is dying,” the girl said, her voice choked by the sobs. “Please could you come? We don't live far.”
Deidre felt her insides melt with concern for the child. She had the sweetest, purest voice. It was a sound that cut through Deidre's tired body and caused her to spring into action. She grabbed her coat and her medical bag and took the little girl's hand. Then the two headed into the storm.
Less than two city blocks away, in a section of tenement apartments, the little girl turned into a doorway and led Deidre up two flights of stairs.
“She's in there,” the little girl said, pointing toward a bedroom at the end of a narrow hallway.
Deidre moved quickly toward the bedroom and found a woman who was very sick, fever racking her thin body. Immediately Deidre began making an assessment and found that the woman was nearly delirious from the illness and very near death. A quick listen to her chest told Dei dre that the woman was suffering from pneumonia and that her fever needed to be reduced if there was any chance to save her life.
For more than an hour Deidre worked over the woman, soothing her hot, dry skin with compresses and ar ranging for her to be transported to the nearest medical fa cility.
Finally, when the woman's fever began to subside, she slowly opened her eyes, blinking because of the bright light. Deidre continued to work tirelessly, sponging her head and trying to cool her body with wet rags.
Struggling to speak, the woman thanked the doctor for coming. “How did you ever find me? I have been sick for so long. I might have died without your help.”
Deidre smiled. “Your little girl saved your life. I would never have known you were up here otherwise. Thank her. Sweet little child, braving a cold, stormy night like this and walking the streets until she found me. She must have been awfully worried about you.”
A look of pain and shock filled the woman's eyes. “What are you talking about?” she asked, her voice drop ping to little more than a baffled whisper.
Deidre was puzzled. “Your little girl,” she repeated. “She came and got me. That's how I found you here.”
The woman began shaking her head and her hand flew to her mouth as if she were trying to contain a scream.
“What is it, what's wrong?” Deidre took the woman's hand in hers and tried to soothe her sudden panic. “Your little girl's all right.”
“Ma'am …” Tears streamed down the woman's face as she fought for the strength to speak. “My little girl died a month ago. She was sick for weeks and …” She paused a moment, bending her head and allowing the sobs to come.
Deidre stepped back, shocked by the woman's story. “But she knocked on my door and led me here! I held her hand until she showed me where you were.”
The woman's tears came harder and she pointed to ward a closet in her cramped bedroom. “There,” she said between sobs. “That's where I keep her things since she died.”
Deidre walked slowly toward the closet, almost aware of what she might see before she actually saw it. She opened the door gingerly and there they were. The coat worn by the little girl only an hour earlier hung completely dry in the closet. The girl's tattered shoes sat neatly on the floor of the closet.
“These belonged to your daughter?” Deidre's heart pounded. It wasn't possible. She turned toward the woman, waiting for an explanation.
“Yes, ma'am.” The woman wiped her wet cheeks with the sleeve from her nightgown.
Deidre turned back toward the tiny coat and shoes. “The girl who led me here wore this coat and those shoes.” Her mind raced searching for understanding. Then finally it dawned on her.
The little girl had to be somewhere in the apartment. Deidre ran toward the room where she had last seen the lit tle girl. But after searching for several minutes, she re turned to the sick woman's bedside. “She's gone.”
The woman nodded, fresh tears filling her eyes. “I told you. My daughter's dead.”
Deidre's heart still pounded, her mind still searched for an explanation. But then it dawned on Deidre. There was no earthly answer for what had happened.
“It's a miracle.” Deidre took the woman's hand and shrugged. “I can't think of anything else to call it.”
The woman nodded and suddenly her face broke into a smile, the tears replaced by a strange, peaceful look. “Her angel came back to help me. There is no other explanation.”
Deidre nodded, feeling the sting of tears in her own eyes. After calling for an ambulance and seeing her pa tient off to the hospital, she walked home slowly through the snow, pondering the impossible and wondering about life. She had been gifted with the knowledge of medi cine, a knowledge that often meant the difference be tween life and death in a patient. Yet there was so much she did not know, so much she would never understand in this life.
Years later, Deidre would tell the story about the little child who, although dead more than a month, had some how appeared on the steps in search of help for her dying mother. And Deidre would still feel the same sense of amazement she had that cold, wintery evening. She be lieves with all her heart that medical technology cannot al ways explain the ways of life.
And to this day she believes the sick woman was right. The girl must have been an angel.
The littlest one of all.