One evening after work, I drove from my hotel to an intersection near the freeway where I believed I had seen a blue sign with the white letter H, the standard icon for a hospital, when our team had gone out for lunch one day.  But when I reached the intersection this evening, there was no such sign to be found.

On nothing but a gut feeling, I drove to an area a few blocks away from the freeway and the main surface street that crossed it, and found a hospital with surprising ease.  As I parked and walked toward the building, though, a strange sense of foreboding came over me.  I felt like I was approaching a place where something awful had happened.

I had only experienced this feeling one other time in my life:  in a priest’s room while touring a California mission.  This was before stories of priests sexually abusing children came to public attention, and relatively little was said about the ways Native Americans were abused in the missions

The Pleasanton hospital’s entry lobby, or whatever it was, looked far from inviting. It was somewhat small, as well as dark and crowded.  The desk was manned by a security guard.

I had no idea how he would respond when I asked him if there was a way I could find out if this was the hospital where my mother had died more than five years ago, but he turned out to be both friendly and helpful. He went to the records, and soon found confirmation that she had been there.  The records also showed her being transferred to a facility for depressed seniors in Livermore.  To top things off, without my even asking, he gave me driving directions to the facility.  

I thanked him profusely and returned to my car.