A harpist sent by someone special.

—by Judy Phillips, Folsom, Calif.

At the hospital, I got on the elevator with my harp and headed up to the second floor. There was one woman on the elevator with me. She asked if I would be performing some place in the hospital, and I told her that I am a music practitioner and that I play for individual patients in their rooms. She commented on how nice that must be.

I asked her if she had a patient there that she would like me to visit, and she gave me the room number and said the patient’s name was Jerry. I told her that I would go to visit her after I played in the surgical prep area.  The woman said she was going to the patient’s room now and would let her know that I would be coming.

About an hour and a half later, I found my way to the room and knocked on the door. There was a young woman who looked to be in her 20s in the bed, and there were two visitors sitting on the window seat. I asked if she was Jerry, and she said that no, her name was Jenny. I looked at the note I had jotted down in the elevator and wondered if I had misheard the woman. But since I was there anyway, I asked her if I could play for her, that it is a service that is offered by the hospital. She said she was waiting to have a surgical procedure and was happy to have some music.

I started with some original music on my harp that was slow and flowing and then continued into some quiet, meditative music. The young woman watched my hands and the room became very quiet. Then she began to cry. One of the visitors got up and came over to her and put her arms around her, and they talked and cried and even laughed together while I continued to play.

When I finished the therapeutic session, I told Jenny that I had come at the request of her earlier visitor who I met in the elevator. She gave a questioning look and said she had not had an earlier visitor.

I thought that was odd. I said that I met someone in the elevator who was planning to visit and asked if I could come and play for her.  Then I asked the young woman if her friend hadn’t come to tell her that I would be coming.  She said that no one had come.

Then she asked, “Was the woman tall with dark hair?”  I said yes.  Then she said, “That was my mother —she is in heaven.  My mother sent you here.”