She wore a black surgical mask, the nurse with the golden eyes. She introduced herself before I went under, though I couldn’t tell you her name.

It was she who later woke me, told me all is well, and the response dropped from my sleepy mouth—your eyes are amazing! She responded with her back turned, thank you.

The commentator in my head asked whether I would have made the eyes compliment were I sober. I decided then I would have. Now, I think probably not

A different nurse came, echoing a song that played from the speaker in the ceiling. Soul Asylum’s Runaway Train, a flash in the pan number from the flannel era, written before the nurse’s birthdate, if I guessed her age right.

Again, the chemical in my blood opened the gateway to my tongue: This singer had the messiest hair. The nurse said, You don’t like messy hair? I said, oh, it was just the thing back then.

The singing nurse brought me a cup of juice. There was a message printed on the side, words I recognized immediately to be stone-tablet-worthy. Between sips, I read the inscription many times. Were my phone handy, I would have snapped a photo, but in the moment I thought the sentiment so profound I could not possibly forget it.

But I did forget. I like to think it doesn’t matter about the words, that the truth the words represented was a holy seed which planted itself inside me and is now prepared to grow into something beyond my imagination. A miracle, just in time for Easter