[00:08.84]When I was in seventh grade,
[00:10.88]I was a candy striper at a local hospital in my town.
[00:15.30]I volunteered about thirty to forty hours a week during the summer.
[00:19.79]Most of the time I spent there was with Mr. Gillespie.
[00:23.84]He never had any visitors,
[00:26.35]and nobody seemed to care about his condition.
[00:29.09]I spent many days there holding his hand and talking to him,
[00:33.79]helping with anything that needed to be done.
[00:35.98]He became a close friend of mine,
[00:38.92]even though he responded with only an occasional squeeze of my hand.
[00:42.76]Mr. Gillespie was in a coma.
[00:45.82]I left for a week to vacation with my parents,
[00:50.15]and when I came back, Mr. Gillespie was gone.
[00:52.83]I didn’t have the nerve to ask any of the nurses where he was,
[00:58.01]for fear they might tell me he had died.
[01:00.59]So with many questions unanswered,
[01:04.57]I continued to volunteer there through my eighth-grade year.
[01:08.15]Several years later, when I was a junior in high school,
[01:12.32]I was at the gas station when I noticed a familiar face.
[01:15.47]When I realized who it was, my eyes filled with tears.
[01:19.74]He was alive!
[01:21.51]I got up the nerve to ask him if his name was Mr. Gillespie,
[01:24.99]and if he had been in a coma about five years ago.
[01:27.84]With an uncertain look on his face, he replied yes.
[01:32.21]I explained how I knew him,
[01:35.04]and that I had spent many hours talking with him in the hospital.
[01:38.56]His eyes welled up with tears,
[01:41.55]and he gave me the warmest hug I had ever received.
[01:44.14]He began to tell me how, as he lay there comatose,
[01:48.74]he could hear me talking to him
[01:50.78]and could feel me holding his hand the whole time.
[01:53.44]He thought it was an angel, not a person, who was there with him.
[01:57.70]Mr. Gillespie firmly believed
[02:00.40]that it was my voice and touch that had kept him alive.
[02:03.28]Then he told me about his life
[02:06.31]and what happened to him to put him in the coma.
[02:08.31]We both cried for a while and exchanged a hug,
[02:12.10]said our good-byes and went our separate ways.
[02:15.10]Although I haven't seen him since, he fills my heart with joy every day.
[02:20.35]I know that I made a difference between his life and his death.
[02:24.40]More important, he has made a tremendous difference in my life.
[02:28.23]I will never forget him and what he did for me: he made me an angel.
