The Dreaded Phone Call

The phone rang that night around eleven o’clock. “Ms. Phillips, your daughter has taken almost an entire bottle of pills.” The voice on the line was the dean of women at her school. “We are transporting her by ambulance to the nearest hospital.

We hope to get her to the hospital in time.” In time? What did that mean? I was in shock. I’d heard about suicide but never dreamed someone in my family would attempt it. I began throwing things into a suitcase as the gravity of the situation sank in.

My sixteen-year-old daughter was three hours away from me.

Will I be able to get to her in time? Will she be OK? How many pills had she taken? I thought as I called my family and friends, asking them to pray.

As I backed out of the driveway, tears began to flow.

“Dear Lord, take care of my baby. Please don’t let her die!” I prayed. The roads were clear, but I would have never known it through my tears and tissues.

I arrived at the hospital and raced through the emergency entrance. I soon learned emergency room personnel had pumped my daughter’s stomach of the eighty-plus Tylenol and Midol tablets. They were stabilizing her condition as her blood levels were elevated four hundred times above the normal numbers.

God had spared her life. But was there any organ damage? She was placed on the psychiatric floor on suicide watch. The nurses watched for her reaction to me as I entered the room. I didn’t know what to expect as I looked into her eyes.

I mouthed the words, “I love you,” as she rolled over to sleep.

Later, a doctor arrived to share she had not suffered any kidney or liver damage. Her life was something she needed to value.

The next few days were a strange mixture of assuring my daughter that I loved her and wondering why she would do such a thing.

I found myself becoming increasingly angry.

What loss we would have had to endure if she had succeeded in taking her life! I asked God to help me forgive her and get her the help she needed.

God’s hand of mercy brought us through that night of uncertainty.

Will there be more uncertain times? Yes, there will be.

But that night, I learned to lean on the One who hears my prayers and can answer in miraculous ways.

Karen M. Phillips