by Judy Baer
Saturday, December 25, Christmas Day
Christmas Day. Instead of embodying hope and joy, it felt draped with hopelessness and despair. The jolly Christmas music playing on the small radio in my room irritated my jangling nerves. Finally I smothered the sounds with a pillow and Kim hurried to wrench the plug from the wall.
I had dozed off and on during the night, and dreamed there was a battle going on, a tug-of-war with Chase as a human rope. Two figures, one light and one dark, alternately yanked and tugged at him until I thought he would rip in half. When I couldn’t bear to watch this hideous game any longer, I moved toward him, but no matter how far or fast I ran, I couldn’t reach him. Then the dark figure wrenched Chase from the light figure’s grasp, and they tumbled together into a dark chasm and disappeared from sight as if Chase were a star being drawn into a black hole.
I woke up screaming, frightening both Kim and myself, and this morning I rose with a sense of an empty darkness within me the likes of which I’ve never before experienced.
I have no peace.
There’s a growing void within me, like a gaping, cavernous maw. It was the dream that started it. Chase being pulled toward life and toward death, God and Satan, good and evil. In the dream, Chase disappeared into the darkness.
The empty space within me is where God had resided. Had resided. Past tense. I lay on the bed, taking inventory of my body and feelings. Then I prayed. But my prayers seemed to dissipate into thin air, as if I’d spoken but no one was there to listen.
“Kim?” I sat up.
“I’m here. Did you have another bad dream?”
“I can’t find him.”
“Who?”
“God. I feel nothing. He’s not here.”
She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.
I told her about the dream and how, when the dark figure wrenched Chase away from the light, something had been wrenched from me, as well. “I can’t feel Him, Kim.”
“You’re just overtired and emotionally exhausted. God didn’t go anywhere. He promised, remember? Besides, you don’t have to ‘feel’ Him in order for Him to be present.” Then the verse about God always being with us rolled off her tongue.
I stared at her in a kind of disbelieving haze. That’s it? That’s all? A handy verse that’s supposed to fill the void in my heart? It’s like saying, “Sure God is here, now snap out of it.”
A hot wave of shame passed over me as I recalled the times I’d come up with pat, easy answers for people who were hurting.
“Turn it over to God,” I’d say. “He’s there for you.”
“Keep praying.”
“Look toward Him.”
“He cares.”
The words had rolled so easily from my lips, I realized, because it was not me who was in pain, who was desperate or afraid.
But now it is me.
“Oh, these Christians,” I once heard someone say. “They have an answer for everything, and it’s always God.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and sent a volley of desperate prayers heavenward, but I might as well have been talking to the wall.
Where are You, Lord?
“Whitney, are you okay? You look like you just lost your best friend. Of course you didn’t, because that would be me.” Kim handed me a cup of coffee in a foam cup from the cafeteria.
My earthly best friend, yes. It was the heavenly one who had vanished.
Had I made God the easy answer to everyone’s troubles, including my own? Or had I begun to take Him for granted, assuming He would pop up like a jack-in-the-box whenever I called for Him?
Or maybe He doesn’t exist, and never did.
If a spiritual abyss exists, I am in it.
Kim couldn’t understand what was happening to me, and I didn’t know how to tell her. What would I say? “My husband is dying and God ran out on me, and I’m not sure He ever really existed at all. Bummer, huh?”
I stared out the window at the bleak grayness of the day. Even the sky was mourning.
The news from intensive care had been choppy at best. The antibiotics seem to be taking hold. No, you can’t see him yet. Chase is resting. We’ll let you know if something changes.
I felt so distant from everyone around me, as if my baby and I were in a bubble, orbiting alone in another dimension, locked away from everything, thinking only of what was happening in the intensive care unit.
Kurt had gone home to care for Wesley, and my parents had returned to the hospital. Kim diligently ran for food I didn’t eat and coffee I couldn’t drink. She refused to leave my side. Helplessness was written on their faces, and I was powerless to ease their pain. I felt like apologizing for being so much trouble, but knew it would only insult them. I felt so useless.
There’s peace in exhaustion, I discovered. Sooner or later, it forces one to cave in to its seductive snare. I didn’t so much sleep as pass out from exhaustion.
I awoke about noon, with a start that produced a chain of reactions in the room. My mother jumped to her feet to peer down at me. Kim hurried to my side.
“Whit? Are you feeling better?”
“Have you heard anything about Chase?”
“Dr. Steele called to say that when you woke up, you could go into Chase’s room for five minutes.”
I scrabbled to a sitting position. “Why didn’t you wake me right away?”
“We thought you needed the rest.”
“What if he’d died? What if I hadn’t been there? Anything could happen….” I’m not an angry person, but an unexpected fury blew so hot in me that it could have incinerated me. “Don’t ever make a decision like that for me again!”
Kim and my mother exchanged glances, but said nothing.
“I’m sorry,” I raked my fingers through my hair. “I’m just so frightened….”
“It’s okay, Whit. Really. Comb your hair, and we’ll take you down to ICU.”
I rose and lumbered to the sink.
The face that looked back at me from the mirror was haggard and drawn. If I’d had the energy, I might have cackled, just to see if a broomstick would appear. “I can’t let Chase see me like this. I’ll scare him to death….” Not funny.
Kim held out a washcloth. “Wash your face. I’ve got lipstick in my purse. You’re fine. We’ll go when you’re ready.”
Outside the door to our room sat a wheelchair. My mother took the handles and said, “Sit. I’m driving.”
“Are you kidding? I don’t need a wheelchair. I can walk on my own two feet—” Unfortunately, my knees chose that moment to buckle and make a liar out of me. “Okay, I’ll ride, but just this once.”
The intensive care unit is a remarkably noisy place, considering that everyone there is terribly ill. Monitors beep, nurses converse, people move about. How is anyone supposed to heal in such chaos? But when I reached Chase’s room, I realized that although the clatter and busyness might bother me, he was oblivious to it. And to everything else.
It seemed like weeks instead of hours since I’d seen him. The golden tones of his skin were ashen now, and he, who always slept with a soft smile on his face, looked bleak even in repose. There were wires and hoses I couldn’t identify, although I recognized the cardiac monitor, the IV stands and the blood pressure monitor. An oxygen tube ran into his nostrils.
Kim pushed me closer to the bed. “I’ll be outside.”
I put my hand out to touch his arm. His skin was warm to my touch. I ran my fingers along the soft golden hair on his forearm and ached at the thought that he didn’t even know me.
Then the cardiac monitor noted a slight increase in his pulse rate. Somehow he had sensed it was me.
“Chase, it’s Whitney.” I struggled to keep my voice natural and light and hoped against hope that he could hear me. “You’ve given me a bad scare, and I want you to stop it. You’ve got to snap out of this now. We still have things to do to get ready for the baby. You haven’t even put the crib together yet.
“It’s not many weeks awa
y now, so you’ll have to recuperate fast. I need you to take care of me, you know, not the other way around. I’ve heard giving birth isn’t all that fun, sort of like trying to pass a basketball through a…Well, you get my drift. Not that I’ll have any stories that will trump yours…”
I kept talking softly until Kim returned to tap me on the shoulder. “Five minutes are up, honey.”
I turned back to Chase. “I’ll be back later, darling. I love you so very, very much.”
And before I could say more, Kim took the handles of the chair and pulled me out of the room.
“Oh, Kim, he looks awful!” I blurted as soon as the doors to ICU closed behind us.
“But he heard you. I’m sure he did. He knows you’re there for him. If prayer and a cheering section can make a difference, then he’ll be well in no time at all.”
Prayer and a cheering section. I’m glad someone’s praying, because right now, with this barrenness within me, I don’t know how to get God’s ear.
Lord, if I’m the one who moved and not You, then help me find my way back.
I touched the necklace Chase had given me only hours before, felt the smoothness of the diamonds and recalled the engraving on the back. Past-Present-Future.
Did Chase and I even have a future?
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Speaking of cheering sections, mine was waiting for me in the hall outside the ICU waiting room. A pitiful group, as cheerleaders go, but beautiful to my eyes.
Kurt had returned, and with him he’d brought Mitzi and Arch; Bryan, looking pale as a ghost, but stoic; Betty, who still had one pink sponge roller in her hair that she’d forgotten to remove; and Harry and his wife, who were holding hands and looking nearly as bewildered as I felt. That, as it was now nearing midnight, Kurt had awoken them all from sound sleep was apparent from their state of dishevelment.
Even Mitzi wasn’t perfect. She was wearing one pink high-heeled slipper trimmed in marabou and another just like it in blue. She’s gained at least sixty pounds in the past few months, and carries it all out front, like a misplaced hump on a camel.
Harry was the first to break out of the pack.
“Listen, kid, I’m so sorry to hear about Chase. We got here as soon as we could. Is there anything we can do?”
I answered the only way I could. I burst into tears and blubbered all over Harry’s shirt.
He patted me ineffectually on the back and did some kind of clucking sound in his throat that was meant to soothe me. It was so sweet and he was trying so hard to help that it only made me cry harder. Betty handed me tissue after tissue from a box on the table. They felt like sandpaper against my skin. Bryan, looking olive-green around the gills in the poor hospital lighting, gave me a weak thumbs-up.
They gathered close to put their arms around me and each other, and together we shuffled like some multiheaded creature from the hall into the waiting room. There was a blessing in their nearness, their touch.
After some moments, our hydralike clump broke apart, leaving only Mitzi clinging to me. It is not easy for two women expecting four babies and each less than six weeks from delivery to hug at all, but we managed. I felt someone kick me in the side and wasn’t sure if it was my baby or one of Mitzi’s.
Then Mitzi attempted to reassure me, Mitzi-style.
“I’d be scared spitless if I were you.” She reduced my emotions into one concise statement. “Dry-as-a-bone spitless.”
“I am, Mitzi. Believe me, I am.” Too much of Mitzi’s comforting is a dangerous thing.
“Well, at least you’ve got something going for you.” She snapped the gum in her mouth.
“I do?” I couldn’t think of a thing that was going my way.
“God, of course. You’re always talking to Him. He has influence. Ask Him to do something about this.”
The smile I gave her was tremulous. “About that…”
“What?” She squinted at me suspiciously.
“I don’t feel Him here, Mitzi, and I don’t know where He’s gone. I’ve tried to pray, but…” I felt the desperation building in my voice. “I haven’t been able to find Him.”
Mitzi put her hands on her newly ample hips. “You misplaced God?” Her expression was incredulous. “Not a good idea, Whitney. Especially now.” She gave me a disgusted glare. “And you are usually so organized, too!”
Somehow, the idea of my having the power to misplace God, as if He was a hairbrush or a set of car keys, struck me as funny. Had I squeezed my heavenly Father into a box so small that I could forget where I put Him? And here stood Mitzi to remind me that God isn’t easy to lose.
I am with you always.
Who am I to think that just because I don’t feel Him, He’s gone? That’s pretty egotistical on my part.
Through my tears, I started to sputter with laughter.
Everyone in the waiting room stared at me as though they were watching me crack and slide, bit by bit, into the pit of insanity.
Only Mitzi understood what was going on. She patted me on the back. “There, there,” she assured me. “You’ll feel much better when you get over yourself.”
Now that’s the pot calling the kettle black, but she’s right. God is like the sun on a cloudy day. No matter how it might look from my vantage point, He’s always there. The clouds may get in the way so I can’t see the light of the sun, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there, right where it always is, shining, dependable, sure.
God’s here. I didn’t misplace Him. I don’t have that kind of clout.
Instead, I had allowed storms and clouds to block my vision, and told myself that because I couldn’t see Him, He wasn’t there. He’s proven Himself to me over and over, and yet, in the darkness, I can’t remember His light.
If I need to see God to believe in Him, I don’t have much faith. If I believe in Him without demanding that I see Him first, that’s real faith. I have come to a fork in the road, and I have to decide. I choose faith.
Lord, faith is believing without seeing. I choose, by faith, to believe in You.
A weight lifted from my shoulders.
“That’s better.” Mitzi mopped at my face with one of those dreadful tissues. She peered curiously into my eyes. “Did you find Him again?”
“You know, Mitzi, I believe I did, thanks to you.”
She looked pleased and surprised. “No kidding? Me?”
I was tempted to remind her that this was not something she should put on her résumé, but held my tongue.
“So God used me?” She was rolling something around in her mind—what, I would never attempt to predict.
“Yes, He just might have.” I took her hand. “You reminded me that He’s not easy to misplace. He’s huge, immovable, immutable and God.”
Mitzi looked impressed. “I did all that?”
“God did it through you.”
She looked down at her huge stomach. “He’s working a lot of things in me lately, isn’t He?”
“I’d say so.” Where was she going with this?
“Very cool. I’ve been thinking. Now that I’m going to be a mother, I should probably get to know Him a little better.”
I was suddenly breathless. Here, in the most terrifying, horrifying moments of my life, with my husband near death, was a prayer being answered. “I…I think it’s a wonderful idea, Mitzi.”
She wrinkled her brow, deep in thought. “Yeah, I think so, too. You’ll have to give me the details. I always thought there was some kind of big holy club you guys belonged to, and there were membership rules, but it’s not like that, is it?”
“We’re all welcome to join His club.”
“It will be easier now, too.” Mitzi looked very pleased at the thought. “Now that He’s already used me to get to you. Now I know He wants me. I’m like everyone else, you know. I like to be where I’m wanted.”
Just like the rest of us.
Everyone was still staring at us, two elephantine mamas in the center of the room, when Dr. Steele walk
ed in. All eyes went to him. Fatigue marked every line of his body.
Then he smiled. A faint, weary smile, but a smile, nonetheless.
“Things aren’t spiraling downward out of control anymore, Whitney. I think we’ll be able to stabilize him. He’s not out of the woods, but if the antibiotics take hold, he’s got a chance.” He looked at me and then at Mitzi, two pregnant pachyderms desperately clinging to one another. “Now I want you to go home and go to bed, Whitney. There’s nothing you can do here.”
“I won’t leave my husband—”
“Then go to bed here, but get off your feet. Doctor’s orders.”
I awoke sometime during the night to the smell of leftover turkey and dressing. Kim was holding a plate of food under my nose.
“Chase?”
“No worse, maybe a hair better.”
I ate the food Kim put in front of me, drank two large glasses of milk and went back to sleep.
Sunday, December 26
This time I awoke to sausage and French toast.
“What time is it?”
“About one o’clock in the afternoon. I would have brought you lunch, but I thought you might like breakfast first.”
“How is that possible? I couldn’t have slept that long.”
“But you did. Dr. Steele is delighted, I might add. Both you and Chase rested well.”
“How could I sleep without even getting up to check on Chase? How is he? I’ve got to get to him….”
“The nurse will come when it’s time for you to see him. It’s pretty busy in his room most of the time.”
My heart sank. “Is he worse?”
“No, praise God, he’s not.”
“Better then?”
“Dr. Steele said something about his white count going in the right direction. That’s all I know.”
Finally, the tide has turned.
Sunday, December 27
Mr. Tibble here,
My pet Whitney has not been home to see me in days. Scram thinks she’s abandoned us. He, however, is prone to panic attacks. I can’t count on his opinion about anything important.
Fortunately, others have been by to feed us. My favorite is the one Whitney calls “Dad.” He opened three cans of food for us this afternoon. That little glutton Scram ate until his stomach dragged on the ground, and then fell asleep on the floor in the sun. He is so uncouth that it is embarrassing. I, on the other hand, am very couth. I have to provide all the class for this joint.