Today, Alicia Solomon is a contented woman as she enjoys her family—her children and her husband. She can now reflect on the painful journey it took for her to be in that place. Had it not been for the hand of the Lord and her faith in God, the script could have been so much different.
Growing up in a Christian home with a mother who has been described as a “prayer warrior,” she was taught firsthand the value of making her request known to God.
Reminiscing on her journey with Freedom Come Rain, Alicia shared that she and her husband were very happy anticipating the birth of their first child. It was the norm for her to feel the baby “very active” in her tummy until May 23, 2018, when she felt a ‘tear’ inside her and realised she wasn’t feeling any movement from the baby.
With no doubt in her mind that her daughter, Deborah Solomon, was meant to be here, she said she called her sister, who thankfully answered on the first couple of rings.
After outlining what was happening, her sister told her to call her doctor. She said most times she would have to send a text and then he would get back to her, but her doctor answered almost instantly.
He quickly instructed her to head to the hospital.
“The whole process led to an emergency C-section, and then it was touch and go as my baby came out looking blue and seemed dead,” she recalled as she pointed out that she was rushed for emergency care and placed in an incubator. It was a fight to save her life, but Alicia fought with the only weapon needed: prayer.
On June 1, her daughter came home from the hospital. After three days of enjoying that victory, she was looking forward to taking their daughter for a follow-up shot at the hospital.
But on June 5, the day she was supposed to take her daughter to the hospital, she herself ended up being a patient at the University Hospital of the West Indies.
She faced one of the biggest battles of her life, which started with a trip to the bathroom. She recalled jumping off the bed, and she said by the time she sat on the toilet seat, she was “feeling weird.”
“I realised that my body and my right side were limp. And I said, What? And I looked to my arm and I looked to my leg, and they just dropped, like they just dropped. And I tried to call out,” Alicia shared, adding that it was a very terrifying experience.
Tried as she might, she could not get anyone’s attention to her plight, as all she got for her efforts were muffled sounds coming from her mouth. Added to that, the TV was playing loudly, and so no one was aware of what was happening inside the bathroom.
“I tried to swing my hand at the door or something like that. But I started to cry because I could not talk. I could not get up. I could not do anything,” she noted.
Finally, her husband, Nicholas, came into the bathroom and saw her there. He and his mother quickly sprang into action, rushing her to the hospital.
She was taken back to Ward 11 as Alicia explained that the policy was that if anything happened to a mother within three weeks of them giving birth, you go back to the maternity ward where the mother slept.
“So while we were going in, the doctor, the consultant, Dr. Bryan, that attended to me when I was in the hospital, was coming out. He had just gone and done the rounds, and he was leaving. When he saw me, he turned back, and that was how I got attention quickly,” she informed.
Although it was a traumatic experience experiencing a stroke, Alicia said she knew the hand of God was in the situation she was facing.
“I remember walking slowly and thinking, Am I dead? I remember putting one foot in front of the other, and I wasn’t fearful. I remember going all through heaven, flying, like flying through heaven, but fast forward to the end of the experience. When I was with Jesus, I said to Him, ‘When I go back, I know you won’t let me remember everything, but let me remember something,’” she reminisced of her heavenly encounter during the first week of the experience.
Describing the surreal experience, she said she was led by an angel to Jesus, who took her hand; she remembered seeing “gold streets” when she held his hand, although she didn’t see His face. She was transported to another place with beautiful flowers like she had never seen before. So beautiful and serene was everything that Alicia said she didn’t want to leave. When Jesus asked her whether she wanted to leave, she told Him “no.”
“By the time I said ‘no,’ I felt like I was falling back into my body, and I opened my eyes, and I said no in my mind because I couldn’t talk,” she shared. Just then, she said she remembered her baby and the prophecy that she was to have three children. She realised her purpose was not complete.
It was a long, hard road to recovery, having therapy sessions, and trusting God as she fought her way back to a normal life with the support of family and friends.
After experiencing something like that, it was amazing that in November she was able to return to work even though she didn’t think she was ready to face the world at large. Her journey has been described as a miracle.
Alicia went on to have two other children after Deborah.
Reflecting on her journey, the mother of three said the most important lesson she has learned is that you are not too important for the world to continue.
Noting that she had always lived a busy life and was always engaged in some activity or another, she saw that life would continue whether she was doing something or not—a sobering thought to take care of herself and not overdo anything.
“I was doing everything for everybody. And at that point, I believe that the Lord said I should slow down,” she observed.
And, for others who have their own storms going through, Alicia’s words of wisdom are, “When you’re going through certain challenges, you can’t pray for yourself. So make sure that you have righteous people in your corner to pray for you through your circumstances.”