“A nurse secretly attended to a toddler placed in her care without realizing that she was being watched. What she did to the child is tear-jerking. The nurse’s gaze darted around the room, her eyes searching for prying eyes. Satisfied that no one was watching, she closed the door with a soft click. The earlier cries of Sophie, Shelby’s baby, became abruptly silenced as the nurse stepped into the room from where she hid. Shelby’s eyes widened in surprise, her maternal instincts on high alert. With concern etched on her face, she wondered what was going on.
As the nurse walked towards the baby, Shelby’s eyes were glued on her. She was about to unravel this nurse’s secret. For some time, Shelby had noticed that whenever the nurse came into the room, her baby would stop crying. That seemed like a good thing, but why did the nurse always have to close the door? What was she hiding? Shelby wondered…Click Here To Continue Reading>> …Click Here To Continue Reading>>
Shelby felt a mix of emotions: fear, anxiety, but amid all these, one thing was clear – she was ready for the truth. Sophie was her miracle baby, and Shelby was more than ready to protect her from harm’s way. Shelby had suffered a miscarriage a year after she’d gotten married to Jonathan. It was a heart-wrenching experience for the couple, one that almost tore them apart. After some months, though, the couple gradually healed, time being a huge factor. Progressively, they came together again, encouraging themselves and trying to be strong for each other. Little did they know that the storm wasn’t even close to being over.
Five years slowly went by, and the couple still remained without a child. They tried every means to have a baby. Shelby had gone for two IVF sessions, but both had failed. After going for the third IVF session with nothing to show for it, Shelby gave up. The fear of never being able to be a mother crippled her completely and made her bitter. It also didn’t help that some of her friends began to distance themselves from her, as if she were some bad omen. A few of her colleagues at the school where she worked also indirectly mocked her, sometimes to her face, but a lot of the time behind her back. Once she’d wanted to attend a mom’s hangout, but one of them had cruelly told her, ‘Wait till you become a mom, the party is strictly for moms.’
For a while, Shelby pretended that the negativities weren’t getting to her, until she could no longer. She began wearing a gloomy face outside the classrooms. Hurt people hurt people, they say. This saying proved true in Shelby and Jonathan’s marriage. Their efforts to have babies proved quite futile, and it affected them both negatively. And though Jonathan tried to be strong for them both, knowing how badly affected his wife was, Shelby wasn’t helping. There were times he would find her crying in the night or sitting alone on the veranda, lost in thoughts. He would walk up to her and try to console and encourage her, but in a fit of rage and pain, Shelby always pushed him off, shouting that she needed to be alone. This attitude continued for a while, frustrating Jonathan even more.
As time went by, Jonathan decided to give Shelby the space she required. He never said a word to her, except when there was an extreme need. Communication gradually died between them, tearing the couple apart and worsening the already chaotic situation. A friend in Jonathan’s office noticed his pale look every time he came. He would ask him what the matter was, and of course, Jonathan would deny that there was any issue.
But when his heart could no longer contain the pain, he knew he had to open up. He confided in his concerned friend, who was empathetic towards him and encouraged him. He then referred Jonathan to a marriage counselor he could vouch for, to help resolve things between him and Shelby. Jonathan took to his friend’s advice and saw the counselor. Soon, Shelby was invited too, and with the help of the counselor, things started falling into place. Together, they began repairing the damage, and soon, their marriage was back on track. Each one supporting the other with love and understanding. And though the pain of the delay still lingered in their hearts, they were determined not to let anything come between them.
Two years later, making it seven years of waiting for a miracle, Shelby began noticing some unfamiliar signs. She became unusually tired most of the time and began having strange cravings that had to be satisfied. At first, it seemed strange to her, but when she began having nausea, she suspected she was pregnant. Not wanting to guess wrong and shatter her hope, she decided to go for a test. Amazingly, she was right. She was pregnant. It felt surreal. Her mouth was agape as she fell to her knees, tears running slowly down her face. She couldn’t believe she was going to be a mother in nine months’ time, after seven years of waiting. Her heart was filled with gratitude to God, but her lips were powerless with shock.
Jonathan’s heart also swelled with joy when he got wind of the news. He jumped for joy at the instant. The couple sang praises to God for the miracle and began praying that they don’t lose the baby. Shelby was extra careful. She attended all her antenatal sessions and never missed any medical appointments. She went on regular exercise excursions, and her husband supported her. They also began making preparations to welcome their newborn. Nine months later, she gave birth to a baby girl, and they named her Sophie.
Sophie was a beautiful baby that earned the love of anyone who glanced at her. Her parents were determined to raise her with love and discipline. Their hearts were filled with gratitude to God for a smooth sail from pregnancy to delivery. Everything was going well. Sophie grew as a child should. She began to sit on her own, crawl, and walk on her own at the right time. She developed teeth as she should and didn’t have any reason to get her parents worried. Not until the eve of her second birthday.
She had earlier complained that day that she was having chest pains. Her mother was concerned and decided to get her pain relief, hoping it would ease the distress her baby was going through. Somehow, she believed it did, as Sophie kept playing normally, like nothing was wrong. She was quite an energetic child, and so seeing the energy with which Sophie played, Shelby felt she had no reason to worry. Instead, she kept preparing for Sophie’s second birthday, which was the next day.
That night, Shelby woke up to the wheezing sounds of Sophie and jerked up in alarm. At first, she had thought it was Jonathan and found it just a little amusing that he was making such noise. However, when the sound continued, she wearily turned on the light from the bedside, and that was when she noticed the sound was coming from Sophie, who kept rolling back and forth in her bed as she struggled to breathe.
Alarmed, Shelby jumped from the bed in fright, waking Jonathan as she rushed to the baby’s side. Tears gushed from her eyes as she took Sophie into her arms, confused on what to do. Jonathan also rushed out of bed, realizing what was at stake. He called the doctor, requesting an ambulance, then he rushed to join his wife,trying to comfort her as she cried aloud, begging God to spare their child. But he was also quite agitated, and eventually, both parents were crying as they looked at their struggling child, feeling powerless.
The ambulance came sooner than expected, and Sophie was rushed in, her parents followed after and sat by Sophie. The fear of losing their daughter was crippling. They kept begging God to spare Sophie’s life. When they got to the hospital, due to the symptoms – the chest pain, the wheezing, and struggles to breathe – the physician diagnosed her with asthma and treated Sophie as such. For the first few weeks, treatment seemed to be effective, and she was discharged. But a few days later, it only worsened, as the chest pain became more severe than before. Believing that her health would gradually get stable, Sophie continued with the medication as an asthmatic patient. Shelby had to take a leave from work to attend to her daughter’s health.
One day, while Sophie’s parents sat with her as she watched her favorite cartoon, Sophie suddenly grabbed her chest and screamed in pain. She began to gasp for air and soon fell unconscious. Shelby screamed in fright; she thought she’d finally lost her daughter. With trembling hands, Jonathan placed his ear to her chest, checking Sophie’s heartbeat. It was still beating, but it was faint and slow. Jonathan rushed to his phone and called an ambulance. Shelby just kept wailing, begging Sophie to wake up, as she couldn’t bear to lose her.
When the ambulance came, an unconscious Sophie was rushed in. Shelby kept crying, while Jonathan remained quiet, his knees buckled in fright at the thought of losing his only child. At the hospital, proper tests were run on Sophie, and it was discovered that Sophie suffered from something else aside from asthma, something much worse – she had developed T-cell lymphoma, which was cancer. Her parents were dazed at this discovery. Both parents cried and wailed, saying that their daughter was too young to be suffering from cancer.
When the tears ran dry, Jonathan sat still, biting his lip. His heart was grieved. Did this mean he would lose his baby girl, his only child? He was willing to fight with everything he had to keep his daughter alive, but this meant his young Sophie would go through session upon session of chemotherapy. He couldn’t imagine his young child being subjected to that. But she had to stay alive, and to stay alive, she had to go through chemotherapy. This completely broke the couple.
Sophie did go from one chemotherapy session to another. She spent months in the hospital for this reason. She couldn’t eat, talk, walk, or use her hands due to the number of chemotherapy sessions she took, yet the cancer only spread more through her body. Shelby resigned from her teaching job; she had to be by her daughter’s side. Jonathan kept going to work because he had to, especially because they needed more funds to foot the medical bills. But he came around each day to see how his daughter and wife were fairing and get the medical reports regarding his daughter’s condition. On several occasions, he spent the night with them at the hospital and left for home very early the next morning to prepare for the day’s work.
Shelby’s heart broke each minute as she watched her child struggle to survive. She wept till she had no tears in her eyes. She kept begging God to heal her daughter and spare her life. The thought of losing Sophie was just too scary, and most times, she would think she was running mad. But thankfully, the medical personnel were always there to cheer her up and help keep her faith alive.
Another measure had to be taken on Sophie to counter the way the cancer had spread through her body – she had to undergo an operation that had to do with the introduction of stem cells. This further crushed her parents; they wondered why Sophie was going through so much already as a little girl. They were embittered by the worsening condition of the little girl they waited so long to have. But they couldn’t bear to lose her, so they gave their consent for the operation to be done on their baby.
Sophie was then prepared for the operation and was rolled into the operating theater for the stem cells to be introduced into her bloodstream. Few weeks into the surgery, Shelby began noticing something strange – whenever it was time for Sophie’s treatment, a certain nurse, Mary, came around to attend to her. She was the one assigned to see to Sophie’s treatment.
Though other personnel came around to check on her and see how she was adjusting to treatments, Mary was the one in charge. Anytime she came around with a smile on her face, she would ask Shelby how she was coping and would calmly listen to the woman rant about how the whole thing was weighing her down. Mary would encourage her to stay strong, believing that Sophie would come out of this successfully. She would then politely request that Shelby leave the ward for a few minutes while she did her thing on Sophie, which Shelby always agreed to.
But then, Shelby didn’t fail to notice something strange – whenever she wanted to leave, Sophie would begin to cry, not wanting her mother to leave her. But a few minutes after she got out, Sophie would become calm. Shelby wondered what was happening. Nurse Mary would always close the door when she wanted to commence treatment on Sophie, so Shelby couldn’t tell what was happening to her daughter. Curiosity took hold of her, and she was determined to find out the truth. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>
So one day, when she saw Mary from afar coming to the ward, she hardly got up and hid behind the curtain. Sophie began to cry, and a few minutes later, Mary walked into the ward. When she didn’t see Shelby on the seat, she figured she’d probably gone out to get something. Mary decided to get to work before Shelby returned. She quickly glanced around to be sure no one was coming or watching her before stealthily closing the door. Shelby watched all this from her hiding spot behind the curtain, and her suspicions grew. After ensuring the door was properly bolted, Mary walked to the still crying child and began to coo her while caressing her hair. Surprisingly, Sophie went calm and quiet. Shelby was dazed, but she watched on.
When Mary had rounded off her dose of treatment for that day on Sophie, she smiled at the young child and saw her off. She then brought out her phone and began playing a video from the curtain. Shelby could discern that whatever Mary was showing her child was a conversation between a mother and a daughter.
‘You are strong, baby. You’ll fight this, yeah?’
‘Yes, Mom. I promise. I won’t give up. I will fight. I will live,’ was the struggled response of the little child.
Shelby wondered who they could be, what the conversation was about, and how it mattered to Sophie. Mary then returned her phone and, amid tears, began singing a song of encouragement for Sophie while caressing her hair.
‘Just fight a little longer, my girl. It’s all worth it in the end. And when you’ve got nobody to turn to, just hold on, and He will find you,’ this was the song Mary sang for Sophie as she caressed her hair, looking into the pale eyeballs of the young girl with faith and hope.
Shelby’s heart broke. She marveled at such a level of faith, hope, and strength from a total stranger.
She wondered why Mary was showing this much kindness and faith; she probably had her own problems. Even she, the mother of the child, was almost losing faith, but Mary still held on. With tears flowing down her face, she stepped out of the curtain, her eyes fixed on Mary.
Mary jerked in alarm as she saw Shelby standing behind them with a tear-stained face.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… mean to,’ Mary stuttered but was abruptly interrupted as Shelby quickly pulled her into a warm embrace and burst into tears.
Tears kept running down Mary’s face as she tightened the hug. Both women were silent for a while, just expressing their emotions in each other’s arms. When they finally withdrew from each other, Shelby beheld Mary’s hands and began expressing her gratitude for such benevolence, love, and kindness. She asked Mary who the child in the video was, and Mary told her it was her late 8-year-old daughter whom she’d lost to cancer 3 years ago. Shelby shut her eyes in pain at the realization of what that must have cost her.
She then expressed her sympathy, but with a smile on her face, Mary said that she’d learned to bear the loss. She further told Shelby that she’d taken that video of her daughter a few weeks before she died. This was why she could easily relate to Sophie’s condition and what Shelby as her mother was going through.
Shelby then asked why she did it secretly, and the woman told her that what she did was unprofessional. If she was caught, it could earn her a query, but she knew it could help build up the faith of the child, despite her just being a toddler. And so she chose to do it regardless, believing that the child would win the war against cancer, despite how doubtful the situation appeared.
Shelby was mesmerized. She couldn’t fathom such a graceful act and couldn’t stop pondering on it either. Someone who had lost her child to this battle still believed a miracle would happen for another’s child and worked towards that belief. That day, she decided to take to the media and openly appreciate her and all the medical personnel who had kept their lives aside to save others.
Talking to the media, she wrote, ‘To my dearest Nurse Mary and all the medical personnel in charge of Sophie’s case, I see you. You try so hard to be unnoticed by me and my child. I see your face drop a little when she sees you and cries. You try so many ways to ease her fears and win her over. I see you hesitate to stick her or pull Band-Aids off. I see you carrying armloads of medicine and supplies into one child’s room, all while your phone is ringing in your pocket from the room of another.
Nurse Mary, I see you. I see you stroke her little bald head and tuck her covers around her tightly. I see you try to build faith and show how much love you have for a child that you don’t even know. You would listen to me rant and wail, and despite your own struggles, you never ceased to wear that smile and encourage me. I know how hard it is to put your own life aside for hours on end, all while going above and beyond for other people’s children. I see you; we all see you.
No amount of snack baskets or cards can fully express how appreciated you are. You are Jesus to us every single day. Moms like me wouldn’t feel sane or heard without you. You save our babies, and we couldn’t do this without you. We love you.’
The emotional post went viral, and soon everyone got talking about who this Nurse Mary could be and the hospital in charge of Sophie’s case. Mary was touched by such warmth of gratitude and also took to the media to acknowledge it. So she replied, ‘Hats off to you, Shelby, for acknowledging as you call me Jesus to us every single day. This is beautiful.’
Unfortunately, after seven months, Sophie eventually lost her battle to stage 4 T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma. Despite the heartbreak of losing their beloved Sophie, as Shelby and Jonathan found solace in honoring her memory on their Facebook page, Sophie the Brave, they started an annual toy fundraiser on Sophie’s birthday so that children in hospitals battling the same illness could have a brighter day.
Blessing kiddo and parents going through the worst of times makes a hard day a little easier,’ Shelby said. Through their grief, they found purpose in spreading love and hope to others enduring similar struggles.
Their family grew with the addition of two healthy children, the youngest of whom was born very recently. They continue to cherish Sophie’s legacy and the nurses’ kind hearts. What do you think about Mary’s act? We would love to hear from you.
