December 2024


"Oh my God, that's her! That's her, alright!" Louanne's hands flew to her face in disbelief. They were looking through a two-way mirror, just on the off-chance that this mystery woman was not Sarah Christianson, although it was already confirmed that she was.


Even though Louanne and Jimmy were now in their seventies, and they hadn't seen their daughter in nearly forty years, they both immediately recognized her.


Jimmy began weeping and took his head into his hands.


"Oh my Lord in Heaven, I didn't think I'd ever live to see this day!" He sobbed.


"It's okay, Dad. We got her back and she's alive and well!" Louanne gently patted Jimmy's shoulder.


"She is well, isn't she?" Louanne turned to the doctor who was standing beside them.


"Well, her vitals are stable," the doctor began. "She's low in certain minerals, which is consistent with dehydration and malnutrition. We've got her on an IV as you can see to get some hydration into her and to help get those mineral levels back up. But there was something that was a little out of the ordinary,"


"What is that?" Louanne turned her attention back to the doctor.


"She appears to be roughly two months post-partum."


"What? She had a baby? At her age?" Louanne was stunned and Jimmy looked up, startled.


"Well, from what we can tell, she appears to have given birth several times. And when she was brought in, a baby was crying in the next room...that seemed to trigger lactation, which in turn triggered her. We had to sedate her."


"My God, my poor baby!" Now it was Louanne who was crying.


"When can we see her, Doc?" Jimmy asked.


Louanne sniffled and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "Yes, when?" She asked.


"We are going to send a nurse in to ask her if she'd like to see you. We did tell her that we were going to contact her next of kin, and she seemed to smile a little, but she was still pretty drugged up." The doctor stepped back and waved a nurse down. "Yes, please go ask, Nurse. Thank you." He stepped back toward Louanne and Jimmy.


"We just don't want to upset her again," he added.


"No, we understand, thank you," Jimmy replied.


Through the mirror, they could see the nurse enter the room and start speaking to Sarah.


Sarah nodded her head and then began gently crying.


The nurse handed her a tissue and patted her on the shoulder, which caused Sarah to jerk her arm away.


"Why did she do that?" Louanne asked.


"She doesn't appear to like being touched much. Sometimes she will allow it but then seems to remember that she doesn't like it, so it sets her off again." The doctor answered. "And since she isn't verbal at this time--"


Louanne cut him off.


"Not verbal?"


"She hasn't spoken yet. Tomorrow we are going to run some tests to see if it's a neurological issue, but right now it looks like it's probably psychological."


The nurse popped her head into the little room they were all in.


"You can go in any time, just remember, she doesn't like to be touched," the nurse said warmly to Louanne and Jimmy.


"Are you ready?" The doctor asked.


"Yes, yes I'm ready," Louanne smiled.


"We've been ready since this time back in 1988," Jimmy also smiled.


"Let's go see your daughter, then," the doctor was also smiling as he guided them out into the hallway and then a few steps further to Sarah's room.