Normally, she wasn't scared of the devil himself, but she was frightened that day, and who could blame her? While I maneuvered the white boxcar around corners, she gazed out the passenger window. "I might not come back," she said softly.

I almost ran the boxcar up a light pole. "Lucille, don't say that. You'll be back here before you know it, bossy as ever."

She cut her eyes over at me. "Well, just in case, I left instructions." I was not surprised that this 90-year-old take-charge woman would take charge of her own funeral.

Arriving at the hospital, she waited in the lobby while I went back to the boxcar for her heavy Samsonite suitcase, circa 1950. I lugged it into the lobby, then looked around for a wheelchair. There were none.

"Let's go," she said. "I might be old, but I can still walk."

Struggling with the antique Samsonite, I followed behind her. Halfway to the elevator, I was out of breath and panting like a dog. "Lucille, what in the world did you pack in this suitcase?"

She didn't miss a beat. "My negligees."

Why was I not surprised?

At the elevator, I was about to push the button, when someone shouted, "Hold it!" A tall, good-looking man, wearing a tailored suit and an understated tie, got on.

"Thanks," he said, and then stared down at the big Samsonite. How could he not?

"Which of you is the patient," he asked.

Lucille declared that she was to have a heart valve replacement the following day. Then that 90-year-old woman began to flirt with him ... and he with her!

"Tell me about yourself," he said.

She smiled as if she'd been hoping he would ask.

"I am Lucille Smead. I love music, martinis and minding everybody else's business."

The stranger laughed out loud, enchanted.

"I was voted Who's Who in the World of Women, and named a Personality of the South, although I'm not sure what that was about. However, I suppose I've been somewhat of a personality all my life."

The good-looking man grinned. "I'll just bet you have."

Lucille beamed. Once again, his response was exactly what she'd wanted to hear.

He asked about her profession and she smiled as though anticipating his question.

"I'm a James Madison University and UVA graduate," she said proudly. "I was the first Virginia State Supervisor of Speech Pathology, a position I personally created." She lifted her chin. "I'm a FELLOW in the American Speech and Hearing Association." Proudly, she added, "I was good at my job." Abruptly, she stopped ticking off the finer points of her life. "I might not leave here alive," she said.

Before I could reassure her, the stranger planted a smile on his face and leaned down to her very short level. "Oh, but you're wrong about that," he said. He looked into her eyes as though gazing at the woman of his dreams, the love of his life. "You are going to leave St. Vincent's as good as new. Maybe even better."

Lucille grinned. "You seem mighty sure of yourself, Sir. You're not my surgeon, are you?"

His eyes locked onto hers and still smiling, he shrugged his well-defined shoulders. "No, nothing like that," he said. "I just know that you're going to be okay. In fact, I'm so sure I want to make a date with you. How about meeting me a year from today? Right here on this elevator."

Lucille gazed up at him and batted her eyelashes. "Cocktails and dinner?"

"Well, of course!" His grin was sprawled all over his face.

Blushing as though she were a young girl again, ninety-year-old Lucille agreed to meet him on that elevator in exactly one year.

The air, charged with energy in that small space, crackled. It bounced off the walls. The hair on my arms stood up and said, Howdy! Between the first and fifth floors, Lucille met a total stranger and told him the story of her life. Then, as God is my witness, the two of them morphed into Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant in An Affair to Remember.

From that day on, she no longer wondered aloud whether she would see St. Simons again. She seemed to forget all about dying and began instead to plan a big cocktail party upon her return.

Two years later I recalled the incident to her. "Lucille, how was your date with that man you met on the elevator at St. Vincent's, the one you were supposed to meet for cocktails and dinner. Remember?"

She laughed out loud. "My land! I forgot all about it!"

I can't say for sure what transpired between those two, but whatever i was, it served to restore her strength and sense of purpose. But I'm sure of one thing: Lucille Smead got up close and personal with an angel that day.

Her newly repaired heart never forgot her Virginia roots, nor did she lose her sense of humor. On August 7, 2006, the St. Simons Presbyterian Church was filled with family and friends who came to pay their last respects to a 96-year-old St. Simons Island Icon.

Six of Lucille's favorite men lifted her up and tenderly escorted her from the church to begin her journey home to Virginia. St. Simons Island said goodbye to that special woman while the organist played the recessional song she had requested: "You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille."