by Ruth Price
Judith breathed back a sob. Her eyes stung with joy. “He's alive?”
Dear God, thank you!
Chapter 10
Isaac and his daed stood with the other families and watched the ambulance leave. Isaac's arms and shoulders ached from the CPR, and he felt like he'd just spent an hour running. Looking at his hands, he realized he was shaking.
Dear God, please let the deacon live, Isaac prayed.
Suddenly, Isaac was wrapped in warm arms. “Son, son.” His daed was crying. “Thank God! I can't believe--that was--” Jacob's words fell into incoherency, and his grip tightened as he kissed the top of his son's head. “I love you, son.”
“Me too,” Isaac said, a bit awkwardly. “I just hope we helped.”
“Ja.” Jacob released his hold. “Is that what you learned in those Englischer classes?”
Isaac nodded.
“And there was an Amish man, helping. I've never heard of such a thing. Is this something you'd like to do with your life?”
Everything that had happened since Deacon Hilty's collapse blurred into a series of sensations: the deacon's damp lips, the stillness of his chest, and the indistinct terror that Isaac was forgetting something, defying God or worse, failing to serve him by forgetting some crucial step. If it hadn't been for Judith and her steady calm, Isaac was certain he would have given up well before the ambulance had arrived. Unlike Judith, who had not only remembered the steps, but literally begged the deacon's soul to remember life, Isaac had merely followed. It had been worthy, and he'd helped, but he couldn't imagine the horror of doing such things every day.
“Nee, daed,” Isaac said. “If it wasn't for Judith...”
“I see.”
Suddenly, Isaac became aware of the others around them. Rachel herded the kinner back to the kitchen with her mamm, while her daed and Esther spoke in harsh tones on the porch. At the end of the driveway, Hezekiah jogged towards them, his shoulders slumped forward in obvious exhaustion.
“Did they come? Is Deacon Hilty okay?” he shouted, when he was close enough to be heard. “I stopped one of the Englischer cars, and they had a portable phone!”
“Ja,” Jacob said. “You did well. They took the deacon away, and Judith went with them. We should see about arranging a ride to the hospital. And contacting his wife.”
Hezekiah nodded. “But he's going to be okay, right?”
Jacob sighed. “That's in God's hands at this point. But these kinner certainly made the difference. I couldn't be more proud!”
Isaac's throat was full and thick, and he could hardly breathe. “Really?”
“Ja, son,” Jacob said. “Takes a man to admit when he's wrong, and I was wrong, both about you and Judith. Just seeing how quickly God might decide to take any of us, and how powerfully you three fought to keep the deacon alive, it makes me realize how I've allowed my own priorities to become warped. We aren't choosing to keep from Englischer technologies because we hate progress, or because we're afraid of things we don't understand. We do it to maintain strong families, a strong community, and to have a closer relationship with God. If I drive you kinner away because God draws you to a different path, that puts me in violation of the spirit of the Ordnung, no matter how stalwartly I might keep to the letter.”
“Daed--” Isaac swallowed. His eyes were wet, and tears flowed down his face, dampening his chin.
“When we return home, I'm going to write your brother a letter. We'll have him and his wife over for dinner. I know my son will respect our laws while in our home, and I can only offer him the same respect for how he chooses to live this life God has given him. If I've done my job well, then as the seed of my heart, he will not fail to give good fruit, and if I have failed, then...”
Isaac threw his arms around his daed, wet cheeks meeting in the embrace. “You haven't failed.”
“Danki,” Jacob murmured. When they separated, wiping the healing tears from their faces with their sleeves, Jacob said, “Now I must find your Judith's mamm and apologize to her as well. I've been unforgivably rude.”
It was with a soaring heart that Isaac followed his daed back into Rachel's house. His daed's change of heart seemed nothing short of a miracle. Now if only God willed another miracle happen for Deacon Hilty, so that he might be returned to a full and long life.
If it is Your will, Isaac prayed. If it is Your will.
Chapter 11
When they arrived at the hospital, the EMTs passed Deacon Hilty, now murmuring incoherently, to the waiting ER doctors. Judith followed, feeling dragged along like a kite with a frayed string. It was early evening, and while Judith worked cleaning the patient floors and not the Emergency Room, the antiseptic and lemon cleaner smell comforted her.
One of the nurses, a stocky man with military cropped hair and a scar in the cartilage of his right nostril, intercepted Judith as she followed along behind the gurney. “I'm Bert. Are you family?”
Judith shook her head. “I'm a family friend. Is Deacon Hilty going to make it?”
“He's more stable now.” Bert steered Judith from the hallway towards the emergency waiting room. “I need you to come with me. Do you have any way to contact his family?”
“My mamm will send someone by buggy to where his wife is staying. She's ill though, waiting for child.”
“I see. You're Amish then?”
“Ja.”
“It truly was a miracle that the ambulance was able to get there in time.”
“We gave CPR until the ambulance came. When will we know what happened?”
“You did the CPR!”
“Ja. Me, Isaac, and Rachel. We took a class at the community center.”
“God bless you.” Bert gave her a firm clap on the shoulder with his palm. “Whatever happens, you three made all the difference. You should know that.”
Judith said, her chest thick with emotion. “Danki.”
“I'll get you something to drink,” Bert said. “How do you feel about apple juice? Or would you prefer coffee?”
“Juice is fine.”
Judith sat in the waiting room for another hour, working through three packages of apple juice. Another family sat across from her, a man as old as Judith's daed when he'd died, and two kinner. They were well tanned with black eyes and hair. One of the kinner, a girl of about ten, sat on the chair, her head leaned against the man's arm, playing an Englischer hand-held game. Her right foot was folded under her rear, her left leg hanging from the chair. The boy sat on the man's other side, his knees to his chest as he stared at the wall behind Judith's shoulder.
“Papa?” the boy asked, looking up at the man, said then something else in rapid Spanish.
The boy's daed wrapped his arm around the child. Though Judith learned some Spanish from her coworker, most of what he said was so jumbled as to be incomprehensible, excepting the word “Dios,” which Judith knew to be God.
Judith closed her eyes and prayed for Deacon Hilty, and also for this family, who must have been waiting for news as vital and terrifying.
After a minute of praying, someone touched Judith's hand.
“Senorita?” The girl stood in front of her, the game abandoned on the couch.
Judith nodded.
Then in accented English, she said, “Did your mama have an accident too?”
“No,” Judith said. “Just a friend, but maybe we can all pray together?”
“Si! Si!” The girl, whose name was Manuela, introduced Judith to her family, and after a halting explanation of how her mamm had been crossing a street and hit by a car, they all joined hands in a rough circle and prayed for each other, their families, and the health of those who were in the doctors' care. When they had finished, Judith offered to get them all juice and crackers from the nurses' station. She returned, arms full of donated largess, to see them speaking with the Amish EMT from before.
“Si! Judith!” Manuela stood and waved Judith over.
Judith dashed as best she could over the slippery white linol
eum towards the group. Would Deacon Hilty live to see his children? Had all of it been in vain?
The Amish EMT smiled as Judith approached, setting her nerves at ease. “Deacon Hilty! Is he alive?”
“Ja,” the EMT's smile widened. “You're the one who performed the CPR, right?”
Judith nodded. “Me, Rachel, and Isaac.”
“Your deacon had a blockage in his heart. They were able to medicate him and give him a catheterization to remove the clot. He's already asking about his wife. If you hadn't been there though, he'd surely have died before we could arrive to get him to a hospital. You three kinner saved that man's life.”
“Thank God!” Judith overflowed in joyful tears. For a moment, it was as though she had stepped back in time to that day in the blistering heat, staring helplessly as her daed faded away. The sick weight of failure that Judith had always carried in that moment disappeared, as though dissolved by God's own hand, and she realized that this was her sign. God had called Judith to use the power of her hands, heart, and mind to safeguard life, as best she could within the boundaries of His own will. Looking into the broad grin of the Amish EMT, she realized she could do it. She would follow her calling to save lives, and she'd be able to do it without sacrificing her life as an Amish woman.
The Amish EMT nodded, as though he too understood the power of revelation moving inside of her. Then he said, “I'll be getting a ride back to my farm with one of the Mennonite EMTs, and I thought he might be able to drop you off as well. And maybe we'll be able to help arrange transportation for your deacon's family, if that hasn't already happened.”
“Please,” Judith said. “And if it all possible, could we talk, about what you do? I think...no, I know I have been called to this as well.”
“Then we shall.” The Amish EMT extended his hand. “My name is Jeremiah. You'll have to get more education, and I suspect you'll be our first lady Amish working this job, but God looks to our souls and not our bodies when placing a calling in us, I think.”
They rode back together, Judith asking questions which Jeremiah readily answered, his brows raising at some of her observations. Occasionally he'd follow with a thoughtful nod. When everything was sorted, he had his friend, a Mennonite man named David, drive her to her home. It was past midnight at this point, and Judith's eyes were heavy with exhaustion. To her surprise and gratitude, a gentle light flickered from the lantern next to the living room window. Someone had waited up for her. Judith knocked on the door, having left her keys. Light footfalls sounded through the door, and there was a click as the chain was removed and the door opened.
Esther stood on the other side, not dressed in her nightgown as Judith would have expected, but instead still in her brown dress and cream colored apron from earlier. Esther ran to Judith, flinging her arms around her daughter. “Dear God, I'm glad to see you. How's the deacon?”
“He's alive,” Judith explained, a bit breathlessly from the tightness of her mamm's grip. “And asking for his wife, who Jeremiah's coworker, Jeremiah was the Amish EMT, is driving her to the hospital now. They said the worst of the danger had passed, though he'll need medication.”
“Gutt! Gutt!” Esther said. “But we have company, come!”
“Company?” It couldn't be the deacon's family, as Judith had just left the deacon's sister's home his wife and kinner had all been there, worrying at the news they'd received from Rachel's daed who had arrived hours earlier by buggy. Which left only one true option, and one that left Judith queasy from a bit more than exhaustion.
They turned into the living room, and Isaac and Jacob sat on the sofa. On the floor, Mary was asleep, still in her day clothes, hugging a pillow from her bedroom. Miriam was also asleep, leaning back against the armchair next to the window, the back of her head resting against the deep blue upholstery on the seat.
Isaac stood as Judith and Esther entered. “How's Deacon Hilty!”
“He's alive and doing well,” Judith said. Seeing Isaac's joyful expression, Judith lost the train of her words. She took a breath, settling herself before explaining, as best she could, everything that had happened. “Jeremiah said if we hadn't been there, the deacon would certainly have gone to God too soon. We saved his life!”
Isaac took a step to her, hopping over Mary, curled up on the floor between them. “You saved her,” he said. “You wouldn't give up on him. And you remembered everything you'd learned.”
“Except the mouthpiece,” Judith said with a shrug. “I think I lost it.”
“Doesn't matter.” Isaac said.
“Ja,” Jacob stood. “So, is this what you're going to do then, Judith? This sort of work?”
Jacob's expression revealed neither anger nor approval, and Judith was unmoored in the face of it. At the hospital, she'd felt so confident in her ability to remain true to her Amish faith while still following the path of a healer. But that didn't meant she would be accorded the approval of Isaac's daed, who wanted a traditional wife for his son. Still, she had to be true to herself and her own path. If she and Isaac married, which seemed so far and fantastical, but at the same time something in her soul Judith wanted, eventually, then she would work to be the best wife she could for him. But she couldn't forsake what God had called her to do.
Dear God, give me strength. Steadied by the prayer, Judith met Jacob's gaze, and in an even voice said, “Ja. This is what I am called by God to do. I will have to finish my Englischer high school classes, and then take more courses to be an EMT, but Jeremiah assures me that I will be able to maintain the strictures of the Ordnung while doing this work. And--” Judith wiped her hands on her apron. “While there will be challenges, I will do all in my power to serve God both as a wife, mother, and healer.”
Jacob nodded. “I see.” Fear wormed its way through Judith's gut as Isaac's daed studied her. Finally he said, “If you are willing to do the work, and my son is as well, then I would be a fool to stand in your way.”
“You would!” Relief flowed through Judith, followed by a wave of joy. She grinned, rocking on the balls of her feet at the energy of it as Isaac took her hands.
“Of course,” Jacob said, and he smiled, the expression softening his features into a deadly grace that reminded her of the man she's first glimpsed a week ago, smiling at Joseph as he descended from the buggy, someone she would be happy to call family. “I owe you the same apology I owed your mamm. I have allowed myself to become too rigid in my own beliefs, and this rigidity has caused pain not only to you, but also to my family, and it has separated me from my community and God. I am grateful to you for showing me where I have lost my way.”
Whether it was from shock, exhaustion, relief or joy, Jacob's words brought tears to Judith's eyes. For so long, she had been estranged, leaning on God's strength and her own will to move towards a future she could barely perceive. Now, everything she wanted was in her hands, and her life stretched before her, a bright path, rocky at points to be sure, but with God's grace and the bonds of community, family, faith, and love, she could walk it. She would walk it.
Dear God, thank you, and please, if there is one more thing I can beg, help my brother Samuel find this same peace and purpose in the service of his dreams and your will. Amen.
Judith's gaze fell upon the end-table, the thin, green cover of her daed's favorite volume of poems resting upon it. Outside, gentle breeze whispered through the corn, the fingers of it passing through the window, making the lantern flicker and ruffling Judith's hair. In that moment, Judith knew that her daed saw her and that he was pleased.
A Note on the Amish and Emergency Medicine
One truly wonderful thing about writing is the fascinating things you learn as a part of researching a book. When I first had the idea for Judith’s story, I knew that she had a calling to study medicine, and she would have to reconcile that with her desire to remain Amish. I had a difficult time myself figuring out how she would merge these two desires. This tension between career and family is something that all women fac
e to varying degrees, and I wanted to do the difficulty of Judith’s position justice in the novella.
I toyed with the notion of ultimately having Judith leave the community and return as a doctor or perhaps studying nursing, though neither of these things seemed to exactly suit what Judith was called by God to do. So it was with great delight that I stumbled across some articles then on Amish EMTs. EMT training fits beautifully with Amish values of community, practicality, and the respect Amish people have for modern medicine. It also suits Judith’s character perfectly, and allows her to work within her community to create a bridge between the Englischer and Amish world as well as come to terms with the death of her father by using the grief she felt as motivation to help save lives.
For this novel to make sense, I have made some clear assumptions.
I’m assuming that Judith belongs to a rather insular Old Amish order, which is why in spite of her interest in the subject, she hasn’t heard anything yet about Amish EMTs or CPR training, which is fairly common nowadays in Amish communities. This is especially true for Judith who is a woman and thus (in my opinion) would be less likely to be informed of this option than a boy her age.
I’m assuming that in the early 2000’s, which is when Judith’s daed would have died that phone booths specifically for emergency use by the Amish had not yet been constructed in her area.
If you are interested in learning more about Amish and Mennonite EMTs, here is a good introductory article on the subject.
Many Lessons Can Be Learned from the Amish Community
How EMS functions in a ‘simple’ way of life
http://www.jems.com/article/patient-care/amish-ems-offers-lessons-prehospital-car
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