Angel in the Elevator

Ruth sighed as she hung up the phone. Her great-aunt, to whom she was very close, was in the ICU of an Atlanta hospital, fading fast. It was her cousin calling to tell her she should come right away if she wanted to see her aunt before she passed.

Knowing she had no time to waste, Ruth cleared her calendar for the rest of the day and headed to Atlanta—a six-hour trip from where she lived on the Georgia coast. Arriving at the hospital in the early evening, she parked in the hospital garage. The November wind whipped around her as she made her way inside.

The hospital seemed eerily empty. No one manned the information desk; no visitors or staff were visible. Ruth didn’t know where to go to find her aunt, but she stepped onto an elevator, hoping to reach a floor where someone could help her.

As soon as she entered the elevator, her problem was resolved. A very kind man in a security uniform asked, “Where do you need to go?”

“ICU,” Ruth replied.

He gave her clear directions on where to go and what to do.

Ruth followed his instructions and arrived at the ICU wing, where she pressed the button to be admitted.

“Yes?” a nurse answered.

“I’m here to see my aunt, Josephine Jancewic,” Ruth said.

“I’m very sorry, but she has passed,” the nurse told her.

Ruth went to the waiting room and sat down, trying to compose herself and begin to process her grief. After a while, she returned to the elevator to go back to her car. She planned to drive to a relative’s home and spend the night.

As she stepped onto the elevator, she was surprised to see the same security guard.

“You got bad news, didn’t you?” he said.

Ruth nodded.

“Where did you park? You shouldn’t walk to your car alone in the dark. May I escort you?”

Grateful, Ruth accepted his offer. She was relieved not to walk alone in the dark in a large city where she knew no one.

Exiting the hospital, the guard walked her halfway to her car, remaining where he could see her until she was safely inside. He told her he would not leave until then.

Ruth unlocked her door, slipped into the driver’s seat, and turned to thank her new friend.

No one was there.

The man who had greeted her, guided her, and guarded her was the only person she saw in the hospital that evening. In that moment, Ruth knew that God had sent an angel—and that she had not walked a single step alone.