by Neta Jackson
The e-mail Inbox was jammed with the typical “Fw: Fw: Fw:” junk mail Amanda and her friends passed around. I scrolled through the new messages quickly. Several Yada Yadas had responded to the birthday invitation. “Wonderful!” Stu wrote. “I’m so sorry! I have to work P.M. shift Tuesday” (Delores). “Can I bring anything?” (Edesa). “Can I bring the kids?” (Florida). “Cool!” (Yo-Yo).
I did a double-take. Yo-Yo? I grinned as I called up her message.
To: Yada Yada Prayer Group
From: [email protected]
Re: Mark Smith’s Birthday
Cool! Will come if I can hang a ride with Mister B.
How do u guyz like my new computer? PD set it up for me. He’s the Man! Also worked some kinda magic and presto, e-mail. Ruth sent me Jodi’s mssg about the B-day party. Add me on the regglar YY list, OK?
Yo, Jodi. U gonna do a name thing for Mark like u did for my B-day?
Yo-Yo
I stared at her message. What a great idea! Hadn’t even occurred to me. I quickly minimized the e-mail program and called up the Internet, clicked Favorites on my toolbar, then clicked one of the baby name Web sites I’d found. Marc . . . Marcus . . . Mark . . . There it was.
Mark. Latin: Warrior. Warlike.
I sat numbly in front of the computer screen. Warrior. Warlike. How terribly appropriate. The warrior, cut down in the heat of battle. Cut down, but not . . .
I had to get my Bible. I jumped up so fast, the chair tipped over, scaring Willie Wonka, who was, of course, stretched out on the dining room floor as close as he could get without sitting in the chair with me. I found my Bible on the back porch swing, then hunted in the concordance until I found what I was looking for: Isaiah 42:3 and 4.
“ ‘A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out,’ ” I read. That was it. Cut down, but not broken. Burning dimly, but not snuffed out. That’s what I wanted to use for Mark’s birthday.
I started to close my Bible, but the verses that followed caught my eye. “In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth.” Oh God. Mark is cut down, but You are still fighting on his behalf to bring about justice. I read on. “This is what God the LORD says . . . ‘I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”
I had to quit reading then. Tears blurred my vision, and a lump stuck in my throat. But strong words from my spirit rose to the surface of my thoughts.
Fight on, my brother. The Lord is with you!
I WORKED ON MY END-OF-YEAR REPORTS late that evening and for a couple of hours after school on Tuesday to make time for Mark’s birthday party up at the hospital. Had to beg off our Bible-reading time with Becky; said I’d try for Wednesday and Friday instead.
My emotions fought with each other as we drove up to Evanston Hospital. Part of me dreaded trying to “celebrate” with Mark lying in a coma. Part of me felt excited. I knew, I just knew, somewhere deep in my spirit, that God was at work doing—what? something!—in spite of what the circumstances looked like.
The entire Baxter tribe (sans dog) took the elevator to the ICU floor and made our way to the family waiting room. Inside the room, a bevy of helium balloons hugged the ceiling, announcing a party in progress. A good smattering of Yada Yada sisters and families were there, plus Pastor and Mrs. Cobbs and other New Morning people. Everyone was doing their best to talk in hushed tones. Two elderly brown women I’d never seen before sat quietly in a corner of the room. Friends? Family? They laughed behind their hands as Nony’s boys and Carla Hickman gleefully batted around two errant balloons that wouldn’t stay afloat.
Flo wiggled through the standing bodies and handed me a plastic glass of punch. “Girl! How Nony got permission to throw this party on the ICU beats me. Lines up right behind the Israelites crossing the Red Sea!”
I grinned. “I know. Isn’t it great? Marcus and Michael are obviously delighted to be having a birthday party for their daddy.”
Yo-Yo arrived with Ben and Ruth Garfield, bearing a gaily decorated chocolate cake from the Bagel Bakery, with MARK and 38 written in sunny yellow icing in the center. Ruth pulled a box of birthday candles from her big leather purse and stuck three on one side of Mark’s name, then lined up eight candles on the other side.
“Three . . . eight . . . thirty-eight. Cute,” I said.
“Didn’t do it to be cute,” Ruth huffed. “Had forty candles on my cake for the big Four-O. Ben insisted on lighting them. Set off the fire alarm. Not taking any chances.”
I was still laughing when Pastor Cobbs asked for quiet and opened with a short prayer of thanksgiving that we could come together to celebrate the life of Mark Smith. Then he swept a hand in Nony’s direction. “Sister Nonyameko? It’s your party!”
Nony welcomed everyone with a gracious smile. She was dressed in a brilliant blue caftan with gold embroidery around the neck and sleeves, her hair braided into a zillion tiny braids and swept up into a coil. “Thank you, dear friends. Thank you for coming tonight. I especially want everyone to meet two special guests . . .” Nony swept over to the two older women and gently pulled them to their feet. “I want to introduce Mark’s grandmother, Mrs. Bessie Smith, and her sister, Auntie Bell, all the way from Peachtree City, Georgia.”
The room erupted in spontaneous clapping. Hoshi Takahashi beamed, but tears glistened in her eyes. I suddenly had an awful thought: Would Hoshi’s family come from Japan if she ended up in the hospital? They didn’t even write since— Just then a nurse opened the door and gestured frantically for us to be quiet. The noise settled down.
“We’re not going to make this long,” Nony went on. “But Mark is the only patient on this side of the ICU tonight, praise God. So we have permission for several of us—not all, I’m afraid—to take a few balloons into Mark’s room and sing ‘Happy Birthday.’ ” Her smile took on a sly look. “I told them it was therapy. Even got a doctor to agree with me. Medicine doesn’t know for sure what comatose patients can hear or understand, and they need a certain amount of stimulation. But first we’re going to share ‘verbal gifts’ to Mark.” She motioned to her son Marcus, who held up a small boom box with a small microphone. “Marcus is going to record the verbal gifts so that his daddy can hear what we each have to say . . . later, when . . .” Nony blinked rapidly and her lip quivered. She quickly went on. “Who would like to be first?”
Nony’s younger son, Michael, waved his hand. He bent close to the mic Marcus held in his hand. “I love you, Daddy. Happy birthday. P.S. Get well quick.”
Taking Michael’s cue, several others gave “verbal gifts,” speaking directly to Mark rather than about him. Peter Douglass praised his courage. Pastor Cobbs thanked him for all his support of New Morning Church. Stu said God had given him the gift of encouragement. By now, tissues and handkerchiefs were coming out in droves, but the verbal gifts continued. Denny thanked Mark for his friendship. Josh thanked him for being a role model. “I can’t even begin to tell you how you have influenced my life, Dr. Smith,” he said. “As I walk into manhood, I want to be like you.”
I was weepy-eyed now. But decided I might as well give my verbal gift now since my family was up to bat. I pulled out the paper with the meaning of Mark’s name and the Scripture from Isaiah 42, which I’d printed out on vellum, rolled up, and tied with a purple ribbon. As I read, murmurs of “Beautiful, beautiful” and “So true” rippled around the room. After I finished, I managed to say into Marcus’s microphone, “You are a warrior, Mark. God’s kind of warrior. One who speaks truth and makes peace. But the battle is not over, Mark. We need you.”
Finally, Marcus clicked off his boom box. The room was quiet. Nony, her eyes wet but still smiling, said, “Thank you, Yo-Yo, for making the beautiful cake. Wil
l you light the candles? Then we’ll sing ‘Happy Birthday,’ and Marcus and Michael can make a wish.”
“Got it,” Yo-Yo said, whipping out her cigarette lighter. I glanced in panic at the closed waiting room door. I was sure lighted candles would break at least a hundred hospital rules, but . . . oh well. They’d get blown out in a minute. We sang a don’t-wake-the-baby version of “Happy Birthday”; then Marcus and Michael blew.
No one doubted what they’d wished.
To my surprise, Nony asked Denny and me if we’d go into Mark’s room with her and the boys, Hoshi, the Cobbs, Mark’s grandmother and aunt, and Peter and Avis Douglass. We tiptoed down the hall, each carrying a balloon, and slipped quietly into the room. The nurses had propped up the patient by raising the hospital bed and plumping an array of pillows under his arms and legs—probably to change his position. The compression stockings wheezed gently. The heart monitor and blood pressure machine still beeped; a bag of fluid dripped into his arm. A nasogastric feeding tube disappeared into his nose, and a small wire ran from the top of his head to another machine, which I’d been told monitored the pressure inside his brain.
A lot of the bruising had disappeared from Mark’s face, and I was surprised that only one eye was still bandaged. I didn’t have time to ask Nony about it, because she moved the boys close to their father on one side and encouraged Grandmother Bessie to hold his hand on the other. Denny closed the door, and once again we softly sang “Happy Birthday.”
When the last note died away, Michael said, “Happy birthday, Daddy. We had chocolate cake—your favorite.”
Mark’s grandmother, tears sliding down her cheeks, leaned close and kissed Mark on the cheek. “You be a good boy, Marky,” she scolded. “Don’t do anything your Grammy Bessie wouldn’t do.”
For a moment, I thought I heard a murmur, a mumbled reply.
Bessie Smith’s head jerked up, her eyes wide. “He—he said, ‘I won’t, Grammy’!”
We all froze. Then Nony said gently, “No, Bessie. He can’t—”
The little woman drew herself up to her full five feet. “Don’t tell me he can’t. I heard him say, ‘I won’t, Grammy.’ ” She leaned over her grandson on the bed once more. “Mark. You listen to your grandmother. If you can hear my voice, squeeze my hand.”
We saw it then. Ever so slowly, Mark Smith squeezed his grandmother’s hand.
Auntie Bell fainted dead away.
39
Peter Douglass caught Auntie Bell before she hit the floor and maneuvered her into a chair. Nony and the two boys crowded close to the bed. “Mark! Mark, can you hear me? It’s Nony! Marcus and Michael are here too.”
“Daddy! Daddy, wake up!” Michael pleaded.
We all held our breath. For a long moment there was no response, and I was afraid we’d imagined the whole thing. And then—Mark’s lips moved. “Nony,” he said in the barest of whispers. His unbandaged eyelid fluttered.
Nony burst into tears. “Oh, praise Jesus!” She practically lay across Mark’s body, cradling him in her arms. “Thank You, Jesus, thank You, thank You . . .”
Most of us were too stunned to say anything. Peter was fanning Auntie Bell. Marcus and Michael clung to Hoshi. Avis lifted one hand in the air, her eyes closed, and kept saying, “Hallelujah! Thank You, Jesus. Oh God! You are good, so good. Jesus!”
Pastor Cobbs stepped out of the room, and I heard him calling, “Nurse? Nurse! Come quickly.” Avis followed him out. I knew she wanted to shout, to praise God with her whole self, and she would look for the first place she could do that without upsetting hospital protocol.
A nurse came running into the room. Assessing the situation, she ordered everyone out except Nony. I gave Nony a quick hug and scooted out behind Denny and the others. Michael ran ahead of us and darted into the waiting room, shouting, “Daddy woke up! My daddy woke up!”
I DON’T KNOW WHEN WE FINALLY GOT TO SLEEP that night. Once we got home, I called everyone I could think of who wasn’t there to tell them the good news; even called Delores at work at the county hospital. We cried and laughed together for several minutes, then she peppered me with questions about exactly what happened. “Mm-hm. Bueno. But we must not expect everything to change overnight. Recovery from a head injury happens in stages; it will take time. Nony will need to be patient. I will talk to her.” Delores’s voice drifted off as if she was thinking aloud. “Sí, sí, I will go to the hospital as soon as I get off work.”
Stu and Becky both came downstairs to our apartment, and the six of us rehashed every detail at least ten times, drank iced tea, stuck a frozen pizza into the oven (Gino’s pizza it wasn’t), and inhaled two bags of chips, a jar of salsa, and the last of the Oreos in the cookie jar. When I finally glanced at the clock, it was almost midnight. “Ack! Tomorrow’s a school day!” I yelped. But even after Denny and I had crawled under the sheet and turned on the window fan, I didn’t go to sleep for ages.
Mark Smith woke up from his coma. Thank You, thank You, Jesus . . .
I was exhausted when I got home from school the next day, and I still had a few end-of-year reports to finish. But Becky was waiting for me on the back porch with her Bible, so I woke myself up with a can of Pepsi, and we read a little further in the Gospel of Matthew. In chapter 9, just after Jesus got criticized for eating with “sinners,” Becky read Jesus’ reply: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
“Man! How cool is that?” Becky shook her head. “An’ all this time I been thinkin’ that, ya know, goin’ ta church and all this religious stuff was just for the good folks.”
I told Denny what she’d said as we drove up to the hospital that evening after throwing together a couple of sandwiches for a paper bag supper. He digested her words. “Yeah. Guess we need people like Becky and Yo-Yo to help us read the Bible like it’s supposed to be read—as good news.”
We found Nony alone in Mark’s room in the ICU when we got there. She was stroking his hand and reading from the Bible on her lap. “ . . . ‘When the Lord restored his exiles to Jerusalem, it was like a dream! We were filled with laughter and we sang for joy’ . . .”
Mark’s unbandaged eye was closed; all the machines were still attached. For a moment, it looked as if nothing had changed—and then I saw it: the nasogastric feeding tube was gone. Had he been able to eat or drink today?
“. . . ‘the other nations said, “What amazing things the Lord has done for them.” Yes, the Lord has done amazing things for us! What joy’!” Nony looked up at us and smiled all over her face.
I looked over her shoulder to see if those last words were from the Bible or if she’d added them herself. But there they were in Psalm 126: “The Lord has done amazing things for us! What joy!”
“Read . . . more.” Denny and I jumped. It didn’t sound like Mark’s voice, but it definitely came from the bed.
Nony stood up and touched her lips to his. “Later. Someone’s come to see you.” She nodded at us and stepped away from the bed.
Denny clasped one of Mark’s hands. “Hey, man. It’s Denny. You look like Rip Van Winkle—without the beard.”
Again, for a long moment there was no response. Then Mark’s unbandaged eye blinked open. He seemed to be trying to focus. Denny leaned close to his line of vision. Mark grunted. “You don’t . . . look so hot . . . yourself. Got . . . four eyes.” He tried to smile and winced. Then his eye closed, and he seemed to fall asleep.
Nony walked with us out of the room. “They still don’t know how much damage he’s sustained to his eyes. The left one is still full of blood. But he can see out of his right eye, though probably double vision, as you heard.”
“And his head?” I asked.
Nony hesitated. Then she said, “The doctors seem hopeful. They won’t know for sure if there is any permanent brain damage until he continues to recover and regains his faculties. So keep praying�
�and please, keep coming to visit. He needs the stimulation.” She hugged us both. “See you tomorrow?”
I shook my head. “I’m so sorry, Nony. We can’t. Josh graduates from Lane Tech tomorrow night, and they expect the parents to show up.” I gave her a wry grin.
“Of course. Give him my love. Josh . . . He . . .” Her eyes got a distant look, as if she wanted to say something else. After a moment, she took one of Denny’s hands and one of mine and brought all our hands together. “God has plans for that young man. Not your plans. Don’t stand in His way. I believe . . .” Again Nony hesitated. “I believe God will use your Joshua like the Joshua of old, to fight a battle that the older generation did not fight.”
THE SCHOOL PARKING lot was already crammed when we pulled in the next evening. Graduates had to arrive no later than six for the seven o’clock graduation. Josh shot out of the car with his shiny green robe and mortarboard under his arm, still folded in the plastic package it came in. Before he disappeared between the rows of cars, he turned and yelled, “Sit on the west bleachers! Then I’ll know where to look for you!”
I smirked at Denny, who was cracking the minivan windows an inch and locking the doors. “That’s nice. I thought maybe he wouldn’t want to acknowledge that he had parents. You’ve got the tickets, don’t you?”
Denny’s eyes rounded. “Tickets? What tickets?”
My mouth fell open. “The tickets! They were on your dresser! We can’t get in without—”