Читать книгу Hannah’s Gift: Lessons from a Life Fully Lived - Maria Housden - Страница 19

LAURAJANE, THE NEW PASTOR OF OUR SMALL METHODIST church, was standing across from me on the other side of Hannah’s bed. She didn’t look like any church leader I had ever seen. She was thirty-one, the same age as me, with a short, thick body and a head of wiry red curls that refused to be tamed. She wore a long, green velvet dress, and a gold cross hung from a chain around her neck. She clutched a wad of tissue in her hand, because her eyes kept filling with tears.

Two days before, surgeons had lifted a tumor the size of a small soccer ball from Hannah’s abdomen. Now she was lying on the bed, tethered to a respirator and heavily sedated. Plastic tubes and the tips of her red shoes emerged from the edges of her pink blanket. Monitors with zigzagging green lines hung from the ceiling above the bed. The only sounds in the room were an occasional beep and a periodic whoosh from the respirator.

Laurajane bowed her head and started to pray. I closed my eyes and tried to quiet my mind. It was doing crazy things. In one moment it was a model of efficiency, deciphering the whooshes, clicks, and beeps of the various machines so quickly that they no longer frightened me. In the next, I couldn’t even remember when I had last eaten.

I desperately needed someone to take care of me. Since Hannah’s surgery, I hadn’t slept more than a few hours at a time, and yesterday my body had given up the tiny form of our dead baby. I knew that I couldn’t depend on Claude to do any more. After five days of juggling work, errands, phone calls, visiting me and Hannah, and shuttling Will between the hospital, play dates, and home, he was as exhausted as I was.

At least my mother was now here. She and Will were moving into the Ronald McDonald House, a beautiful facility with lots of toys and activities to keep Will busy, across the street from the hospital. Claude would continue to sleep at home. It was probably just as well; he and my mother had, over the years, only barely managed to get along, and these days I couldn’t handle being a referee.

One of the monitors began to beep. I realized my mind had been wandering. The beeping stopped. I tried once again to concentrate on Laurajane’s words. It was too late.

“Amen,” Laurajane said.

I opened my eyes. Tears were streaming down Laurajane’s cheeks and dripping off her chin. She was looking at me as if she was about to say something; I didn’t yet know her well enough to imagine what it might be. For days, people had been telling me, “God only gives us what we can handle.” I hoped Laurajane wasn’t about to tell me the same thing. I knew these words were meant to comfort me, but I was finding it difficult to accept that what was happening to Hannah and our family was part of some benevolent God’s plan. I also suspected that when people said this, they were secretly comforting themselves, imagining that since they couldn’t handle what was happening to us, their God would never give it to them.

“I have no choice!” I wanted to scream. I couldn’t wall myself off from pain and fear. To turn away from them would be to turn away from Hannah. No matter how bad things were, I wasn’t willing to do that.

Laurajane cleared her throat and reached for another tissue.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, pausing to blow her nose, “but I can’t lie to you. I want more than anything to make sense of what is happening to you guys, but I can’t even begin to pretend that this is something I understand.

“I became a minister because I loved and believed in God and wanted to help other people, but now, seeing what you are going through, I’m not sure I have what it takes. This whole scene doesn’t jibe with what I thought I knew about Him; it’s hard to believe that the God I love would let a child suffer like this.”

I couldn’t decide whether to kiss her or fall on my knees. Laurajane’s humility and willingness to acknowledge out loud the unfairness and insanity I was feeling came as a profound relief. I realized then that what I needed most wasn’t for someone to make me feel better; I needed people like Laurajane who were willing to stand with me in the face of the raw truth.