Читать книгу Hannah’s Gift: Lessons from a Life Fully Lived - Maria Housden - Страница 13

IT WAS PAST MIDNIGHT, BUT NOT DARK OR QUIET. THE hallway’s fluorescent light spilled into the room through the half-open door. A monitor beeped; the IV pump clicked. If I lay still enough, I could almost hear the whoosh of the pain medication pulsing through the line that fed a tiny vein in Hannah’s hand. Because of it, Hannah was sleeping peacefully for the first time in weeks.

Although my eyes were burning with fatigue, they wouldn’t stay shut. I began to wonder if I was caught in one of those dreams where you think you’re awake but you’re not. Hannah, curled up on her side next to me, stirred. I sat up, peering at her face in the half-light. Her skin was so pale. I ran my finger along her cheek and brushed a few strands of blond hair away from her lips. Rearranging the blankets, I smiled to see that her new red shoes were still on her feet. Ever since we’d bought them two days before, she had refused to take them off. As I lay back down, Hannah lifted her arm and dropped it lazily across my chest.

I couldn’t remember if I had ever lived a day as never-ending as this one. After more than seven hours of tests, questions, and examinations, the emergency room doctors had finally moved Hannah into a room on the pediatric floor. At first the nurses had said I couldn’t stay overnight; there was nowhere for me to sleep. When Claude and I insisted, they agreed to make an exception and let Hannah and me sleep together in her twin-size bed.

Before Claude left, I handed him a list of things that Hannah and I would need in the coming days: Hannah’s pink-flowered nightgown that she called her “robe j’s,” a pair of leggings and a sweatshirt for me, underwear, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and Hannah’s pink blanket. In the midst of a crisis, our needs were surprisingly simple.

Later, I sat on the edge of the bed and dialed a series of phone numbers I knew by heart. First I called our parents, Claude’s and my own. I told them briefly about Hannah and the miscarriage and asked them to call the rest of the family. My mother agreed to come as soon as possible to help with Will. Then I called everyone I could think of who was expecting me to do something for them in the coming year: church committees, the PTA, Will’s school. I told them that Hannah was sick, that I would be devoting all my time and energy to being with her and our family, that I was no longer available for anything else. I felt as if I had lost a thousand pounds.

I realized that for years I had been measuring my worth by being involved, important, and indispensable, saying “yes” to things not only because I wanted to be helpful, but because I wanted to be looked up to, admired, and loved. I had poured myself into maintaining an illusion of perfection in every aspect of my life. And I had been so busy “doing the right thing” for the benefit of everyone else that I had lost track of what really mattered to me.

Now, lying in the half-dark, my priorities seemed incredibly clear; this was where I wanted and needed to be. I felt so certain about it that, for the first time in a long time, I forgot to worry about what anyone else thought.