The hospital room was decorated for Christmas. The young man was sitting in his bed, wired up to a horde of machines. The kid was watching something on the television mounted on the wall. Barely able to keep his eyes open. He was 8.

“Are you in any pain,” the nurse asked.

The little boy was weak. His neck was gaunt. His head was covered in bandages. Beneath his cap was a large crescent-moon scar on his scalp, from where doctors had operated on his brain.

“I’m not in pain,” the kid said drowsily.

He was watching some Christmas movie in black and white. His mother remembers this specifically.

His mother was right beside him, reading a book. She was a single mother. She worked full-time as a night waitress, and she worked on a landscaping crew in the daylight hours.

She didn’t notice, but she fell asleep. Because when she awoke, there were medical staffers gathered around her son’s bed. The heart monitor was as flat as a prairie highway.

They rushed her son away.

“What’s happening to my son!” she screamed.

“Ma’am,” said one staffer. “Try to calm down.”

She called her son’s name. But her boy was already being whisked down the hall by a team of scrubs and lab coats.

She found herself in a waiting room. No family to support her. No parents. No husband. No nothing. She felt as alone as anyone had ever felt. And she needed a cigarette.

That’s when she noticed a guy walking into the waiting room. Jeans and a light jacket. He sat beside her. He started talking with her. A nice guy. Cheerful and easy going. He asked about her son. And she talked to him. She opened up to him. She let him hear it all. She told him everything until she started crying. She said “This will be my last Christmas with my son.”

The man just listened. Then he smiled.

“Bo is going to be okay,” he said. “This is not the end.”

The young woman was immediately confused. How did this man know her son’s nickname? She hadn’t said her son’s nickname. She had only been calling him by his real name, Brody. She was moderately offended.

“How do you know my son’s nickname?” she asked.

The reply was only another smile.

The young woman just looked at him. Who was this guy?

“Who are you?” she asked.

The man didn’t answer. He simply stood and left the room. She watched him walk away, meandering down the hall. And one particular thing sticks out in her head, regarding this memory:

Nobody interacted with this man. He just walked through the hospital corridor like as though nobody noticed him.

Within a few hours, the doctor said her son was going to be okay. Forty-two years later, he still is.

And this Christmas will make 43.