Barbara was not much for prayer. She prayed at church and repeated The Lord’s Prayer every morning before she began her day, but apart from that, she did not rely much on prayer. Barbara had a theory that God was going to do whatever He wanted to anyway, so it didn’t matter much whether people prayed or not. Now things looked different to her. “Oh God, don’t let him die. Don’t let him die. Don’t let him die,” she repeated over and over again. Tears were streaming down her face but she was not making any noise. She would have been embarrassed to sob or pray aloud. Her prayer was inside her head, and she hoped that it was somehow making its way to heaven.