CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The car accident happened eight days ago. Ruby and Henry were making their eighth visit to Connie’s room at St. Agnes Hospital. From their first visit, their routine was the same: they pulled the room’s two chairs up to the bedside and talked to Connie. Dr. von Hoerner thought this was a good idea, even though Connie didn’t respond to them—she couldn’t—she was in a coma and had been lost in that deep crevasse since the accident. Even if she hadn’t been in a coma, she wouldn’t have been able to talk because her jaw had been wired shut, having been broken so severely. That it would have to be wired shut for the next two months was evidence of how severe the damage was to her lower face. As for the rest of her, she was in a full body plaster cast, with too many tubes running in and out for the layman to understand.
Ruby and Henry’s two-hour visit that day differed from the previous visits in one respect: it was the first time someone else other than themselves and hospital staff was allowed to enter the room, and someone other than Father O’Reilly from St. Mary’s, who was there on the third day after the accident to give her the Last Rights, just in case. This time, for the first time, they invited an old family friend, a man they had been close to for nearly fifty years, someone who Ruby shared her childhood with in Chilton. His name was Father Oliver. He was a Jesuit priest.
Jesuits were members of The Society of Jesus, a religious order in the Roman Catholic Church. Jesuit means “Soldier of Christ,” a name given by the founder of the order, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who was a soldier—actually a knight—before becoming a priest. Father Oliver functioned in his order as a traveling priest, in constant motion, meeting and serving the needs of other priests in his order in any way his pledge to poverty would allow.
He was in New York when he got the phone call from a mutual friend of his and Ruby’s, another childhood friend, telling him of the tragic accident that had killed Carl and nearly killed Connie—and may yet. He left his duties in New York and immediately sought out Ruby and Henry to comfort them in any way he could. When he arrived in Chilton, he was met by his old friend and driven to Ruby and Henry’s house, carrying a small suitcase with contents fully consistent with his pledge to poverty. He dressed simply, with black trousers and a Roman collar tab shirt under his very heavy winter overcoat. Within the first hour of his arrival, Ruby and Henry drove him to St. Agnes to see Connie.
When Father Oliver walked into Connie’s room behind Ruby and Henry, he saw Connie beyond them and audibly gasped. “Oh, God Almighty,” he volunteered while restraining himself in his demeanor, “what has become of your lamb?” With a quick shrug of his shoulders, his heavy overcoat slipped from his shoulders. “We pray that your blessing will get her through this perilous time.” He wasn’t prepared to see Connie in her present state, so unrecognizable, so cauterized in bandages. He begged Jesus, Mary, and Joseph to help him find the wisdom to provide the comfort these three souls must surely need.
Father Oliver was told that many more surgeries lay ahead, but for now, her recovery would go undisturbed for several weeks while she was confined to bed for an indefinite time. Her comatose state made the next step nearly unidentifiable. As soon as he got to her bedside, he knew what he had to do. He folded his coat into a neat square and, placing it on the floor as a kneeling pad, he fell to his knees and began praying aloud, as Ruby and Henry stood a half step behind him. “Dear Lord,” he solemnly began, placing his hand on Connie’s exposed hand, which was at her side and held in place by a safety strap:
“I praise and thank you for all the graces you have bestowed upon us and the strength you have given Ruby and Henry to face this difficulty. I humbly prostrate myself before you and ask that you look down on Connie with compassion. Come to her assistance in this great need, that she may receive the help of heaven in all her suffering, and bring her back to us in every way healthy. Despise not my poor prayer and let not my trust be in vain. For my small and humble part, I will hold onto Connie as long as it takes for her to come back to us. I ask your blessing in my unswerving commitment from this moment on. Amen.”
Ruby and Henry followed his “Amen” with their own, in unison, softly, and knew this was all out of their hands. They were devout Catholics and knew then that they had to put their trust in God.
Father Oliver turned to face Ruby and Henry without letting go of Connie’s hand and said, “I will stay here and pray for her and not let go of her hand until she comes back to us. My prayers are for you too, that you may get through this difficult time. You can expect to find me here, whenever you visit her.” With that, he returned to praying on his knees, this time in silence, and bowed his head close to Connie’s hand, the one he held in his own hand, while his other hand held onto the small silver cross that hung from a chain around his neck. It was his duty; he was, after all, a Soldier of Christ.
“Thank you, Father Oliver,” Henry said softly. Ruby repeated Henry’s words. Then, together, they left the room in silence and gratitude for this man’s gift.
Five hours later, close to the midnight hour, Father Oliver rose from his knees and walked slowly, stiff from his supplications, down the hall a few rooms to relieve himself in the men’s room. When he returned to Connie’s room, he pulled a chair up to her bedside, where he entwined his hand in her safety strap, took her exposed hand in his once again, and proceeded to fall asleep. In the morning, he would go to his knees again, in a full day of prayer. He would live this pattern every day until Connie came back from wherever she was, just as he had promised God, for however long it would take.
∞
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It had been two weeks since the accident. Connie was still in a coma, a deep unconsciousness, in the intensive care unit of St. Agnes hospital in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. It was Saturday, December 28, 1946. The snow was higher than ever, and the week was one of the coldest weeks many could remember in many years.
A Love Story with a Little Heartbreak Page 21