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an opportunity for me to be gracious.
    But I also knew the doctor was wrong, at least about Beth. She never becomes a refugee from reality in a crisis. She’s calm and clinical under the most intense pressure. Her words to the doctor were a confident proclamation, not mindless wishful thinking. It was as if she knew something the rest of us hadn’t been told. I certainly couldn’t see whatever miraculous future she had in view. All I could see was the X-ray and the horrendous prognosis that accompanied it.
    “Just wait and see. It will be a medical phenomenon. Alex’s story will touch people all across this nation. It will give hope to people who have lost all hope.”
    Whatever was in her, it wasn’t in me. The doctor finished listening and politely excused himself.
+ + +
    What was happening now seemed so surreal. Memories emerged from deep places. I had written a poem for Alex months before he was born, parts of which seemed strangely relevant now:
Precious Child There is so much I yearn to Tell you To teach you To experience with you For now, let me share some of my sorrows You will be exposed to a world Far different than the womb . . . Blessed child What I long to teach you most Is where you come from And where you might return . . .
    Beth and I trusted God and believed, even before Alex was born, that God had a special life planned for him. Now, in the hush of the hospital, I had to face the end of those plans, at least on earth.
+ + +
    When we returned to the waiting room, even more people had gathered. Some were talking and others were praying. We shared the news we had received from the doctors, and then all the people in the room held hands and began to pray. Many audible prayers were brought to the throne of God in this moment.
    In fact, over those first dark days, we turned to God again and again. I don’t remember my own prayers or most of the others. But there was one prayer that pierced my darkness the day after the accident.
    Our minister, Pastor Brown, had waited for everyone else to pray, and then, following a few moments of silence, he lifted up his voice: “Oh Lord, we know that Alex is with You, even now. The doctors have spoken. And now, Lord, we await Your word on the matter.”
    Simple and powerful. Yes, what did God have to say on the matter of Alex? Pastor Brown’s prayer was a great comfort. Of course, nothing would happen outside of God’s supervision. I needed to hang on to that truth. And I did—for a short time.
+ + +
    As Beth and I waited to see Alex that first day, in my mind, I was back at the day of Alex’s birth. Another hospital, a day of joy. I was beside Beth, but shielding my eyes from the cesarean surgery—I didn’t want to pass out. And then the indescribable moment when he entered our world. . . . The nurse cut the cord, looked over to me, and said, “Would you like to hold William Alexander?”
    “Is that his name?”
    Beth looked up at me. “Uh, Kevin, that’s the name we chose in case we had a boy—remember?” She smiled.
    “Oh yeah, that’s right,” I agreed. “William Alexander, after my dad.”
+ + +
    My father, Dr. William Malarkey, an endocrinologist and director of the Clinical Research Center at Ohio State University, was off lecturing somewhere in Europe. Had anyone notified him about the accident? As I sat in the waiting room, surrounded by praying friends and family, a new set of questions came at me like daggers.
    If Alex dies, will I go to jail for vehicular homicide?
    Did I hurt the people in the other car?
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+ + + I was speaking at a medical conference in Europe when the accident occurred. In fact, I was taking pictures of a boy who was a quadriplegic with a respirator in a wheelchair at a park in Paris. At the same time, thousands of miles away in Ohio, unknown to me, my grandson was on a MedFlight and would face a similar outcome. Every time I see a picture of the Eiffel Tower, I am reminded that I had just looked at its