The very last thing I said to my parents as I was wheeled into the operating room was, “No more seizures.”
Dr. Carson, my neurosurgeon, told my parents that the surgery went well and they could see me when they placed me in the recovery room. I lay swollen with tubes and wires in and all around my head and body. My parents had faith in my surgeon and neurologist, Dr. Freeman, but this scared them beyond words. Later that night, for reasons that have never been explained, I fell into a deep coma.
With the sounds of life-support machines beeping, IV fluids being pumped into my body, nurses and doctors running in and out of my room, and my parents softly sobbing, you could hear Mister Rogers singing, I like you just the way you are, from a cassette player on a back shelf in my room in the Intensive Care Unit. My mother was called from the room to the nurses’ station where she was handed a phone. A man claiming to be the Mister Rogers was asking for her.
It was Mister Rogers asking her how I was doing. Mom gave him the bleak news that although the surgery went well, I suffered severe brain stem swelling and was in a coma. They talked a little more and he told her that he would pray for me. We did not know that Mister Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian Minister.
For the following two weeks, Mister Rogers called every day to ask about my status and to pray with my mother. One morning he called and asked her if it would be okay with her if he visited me the next afternoon. My mother told him that sadly I was still in a coma and would not know he was there. He said he would come anyway. He asked that she not tell anyone he was coming because he wanted it to be a private visit and did not want the press to be there.
The next afternoon Mister Rogers flew from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Baltimore, Maryland, with only a clarinet case. A minister friend from Baltimore picked him up from the airport and drove him directly to Johns Hopkins Children’s Hospital. My parents, brother, grandparents, and many other family members took turns keeping vigil by my bedside. Each tried in their own way to wake me from my coma. They immediately recognized the tall man with the kind face as he stepped inside my room.
Mister Rogers gently placed his clarinet case on my bed, opened it and took out King Friday, Lady Elaine Fairchild and my favorite, Daniel Striped Tiger. For the following hour, I was the star in his neighborhood. I’d love to end this story by telling you that right there and then I emerged from my coma but, no, this was not to be. After his visit with me and several more minutes with my family, Mister Rogers’ minister friend drove him back to the airport and he flew back to his hometown in Pennsylvania, taking along an empty clarinet case.
What I can tell you though is that Mister Rogers became my real friend and not just a TV friend! We remained close and shared many conversations, birthday wishes and milestones for the following twenty years until his death on February 27, 2003.
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Tom Hanks stars as Mister Rogers in the feature film, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.
