“I can’t,” she said. “I don’t want to stay. It’s not home.”
The doctor argued with her, insisting that she would be better cared for in the hospital. David watched the doctor try to persuade Thelma and knew it was futile.
Why did the medical world think that dying was a matter to be managed only by health care professionals? They didn’t seem to understand that being cared for in an institution, by strangers, under regimented routines, cut people off from all the things that truly mattered to them in their life. Why couldn’t they see that there might be a better approach to face death? At home, cared for with the loving hands of family.
Thelma wouldn’t budge and finally the doctor threw up his hands and agreed to release her. He wrote out a pain medication prescription to fill, made her promise to call hospice, and half an hour later Dok drove David, Birdy, and Thelma to Moss Hill.
Her last trip home.
13
David was in the barn, brushing down Thistle after a long buggy ride, when he realized Birdy was standing by the open door. He stilled when he saw her, knowing from the look on her face that she had something important to tell him.
“It’s Thelma. Katrina sent word that she thinks the time is short. They want you to come.”
He looked down at the brush in his hands. Birdy walked over to him and put her arms around him. “I’ll go with you.”
“I’d like that.” He returned her embrace, grateful for a woman who saw his ministry as hers too. Their marriage was a true partnership, beyond anything he could have ever hoped. He stroked her back. “Will you call Dok and ask her to stop by?”
David asked for a few moments alone upstairs before they left for Moss Hill. He wanted to pray before he did anything else. He knelt briefly by his bed and lifted Thelma up to the Lord. “Precious in his sight is the death of his saints. Lord, Thelma is precious to us and precious to you. Receive her spirit. Restore her soul.”
Katrina met their buggy out in the yard with little Anna clinging to her leg and a baby in her arms. “Andy called Dok. She should be here any minute.” Her eyes were red and swollen from crying.
“How are you holding up?” Birdy asked.
“Truth be told, I’m exhausted. Between the baby coming and Thelma . . . passing, I’ve hardly slept.”
“What happened to the mother’s helper you hired?”
“Someone paid her twice what I had offered to pay her.”
Birdy’s mouth dropped. “Why didn’t you let us know? I would have come right away.”
“Everything was happening too fast. There wasn’t time. Thelma started going downhill last night.”
“Well, we’re here, now. I’ll send Ruthie right over.”
“No,” Katrina said quickly. “Not Ruthie. She has no patience with children.”
Birdy swallowed a smile. “Molly would love to come and stay with you. She had asked if she could be your mother’s helper weeks ago.”
Katrina nodded. “Molly would probably be the best choice. I just hoped to have someone with experience. But there’s no one available, at least not in Stoney Ridge.” She opened the door and they followed her into the living room, where Thelma lay on the couch. “She wants to be in the middle of things, even now.”
Thelma’s labored breathing filled the small room. David was glad it was morning, with the sun streaming through the windows, and not night. Thelma loved the light.
He pulled a chair to the couch and took Thelma’s age-spot-speckled hand in his, noticing how crinkled her skin was, crepe-paper thin. She was lying with her head propped up slightly on a pillow, as if she’d wanted to sit upright but hadn’t the strength. Her eyes fluttered half open, lighting faintly with recognition, before closing again.
“Glad you got here in time,” she panted through blue lips. “You always did run late, David. Your sermons too.”
How he would miss Thelma! She was the one who had convinced her husband, Bishop Elmo, to invite David to Stoney Ridge. She was like a mother and aunt to him, all wrapped up in a ninety-pound package of spunk.
She mumbled something to him.
He leaned closer. “Thelma, can you say that again?”
“The music. Do you hear the music?”
He didn’t, but it wasn’t the first time he had sat by the deathbed of someone who heard music as the curtain of heaven opened. What was Thelma hearing, seeing, sensing? It was such a holy mystery, this business of dying. Of a soul leaving earth and bound for heaven. He often wondered if unseen angels might be surrounding them, waiting to accompany the soul through the realms, protecting it from the Evil One, until it reached its final destination. Yes, death was a holy mystery, yet one that filled him with reverence and praise for God.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and glanced up to see his sister Dok. He hadn’t heard her come in.
“I’d like to listen to her heartbeat,” she said, warming the stethoscope in her palm.
Her voice was calm, there was no sign of alarm in her expression. He had to hand it to her—she was not a woman ruled by emotion.
David stood and pulled the chair away to let his sister move in closer to Thelma.
Dok crouched down beside her. “How long has she been like this?”
They all looked to Katrina to respond. “Much worse since yesterday.”
Dok frowned. “Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
“She wouldn’t let us,” Katrina said. “She was afraid you’d put her in the hospital.”
“She might be more comfortable there. They could give her oxygen that would help her breathe more easily.”
“No,” Thelma gasped. “No hospital.”
“She thinks it will only prolong her dying,” Katrina said. “She said she’s ready. She’s said all her goodbyes. Let her stay, please.” She handed the baby to Birdy and little Anna to David and knelt by Thelma, gently massaging her wrists.
David realized that this was a significant moment for his sister. Despite being raised with the Amish view of death as a normal part of living, she had been trained in modern medicine, which perceived death as not normal. This issue was a constant tension between Dr. Finegold and his Amish patients, resulting in having patients avoid calling him unless it was a dire emergency. So this, David knew, this was the moment that could endear Dok to the Stoney Ridge Amish . . . or alienate her.
Dok took Thelma’s pulse, her blood pressure, listened on her stethoscope to her abdomen, all with her chin tucked to her chest. She lifted her head and looked around the room. “Well, then, let’s keep her as comfortable as possible.” She nodded to David to follow her and walked into the tiny kitchen. “It won’t be long. The aneurysm has burst. Blood is filling her abdominal cavity. I’m going to set up an IV.”
“Thank you. You can’t imagine how much it means to everyone to have Thelma stay here in her own house and die surrounded by those she loves. If she were in a hospital, she’d be restless and anxious and unhappy. You don’t know what it means to us.”
Dok looked David straight in the eyes. “Oh, but I think I do.” She swept past him to head out to her car. He watched out the window as she bent over the open hatch and rummaged through her medical equipment.
Dok was going to do just fine.
It was a good death. The best.
Katrina and Andy, Birdy and David, and Dok stayed with Thelma through her last hour. David read Psalm 90 aloud, Thelma’s favorite, the only psalm written by Moses. As she died, they were all able to be with her, touching her. And God was with them.
When he finished reading the psalm, he looked up and realized that Thelma was unmoving, too still to be sleeping.
Katrina knelt beside the old woman and touched her cheek. “Oh, Thelma, I’ll miss you.”
Yes. Yes, David thought, fighting back the sting of tears in his eyes, she would be dearly missed.
As the undertaker removed Thelma’s body from her home, an osprey circled above the hilltop, giving its distinctive cry. Birdy said she thought i
t was a special gift from God, provided as a benediction for a life lived well.
Three days later, Thelma Beiler’s funeral took place on a beastly hot, utterly breezeless day. The little Amish church of Stoney Ridge stopped their daily obligations and responsibilities to acknowledge the passing of a fine woman.
After the funeral, while everyone gathered back at Moss Hill for a meal, David offered to rock Katrina’s baby to sleep in a back bedroom. He tucked the baby into his crib, then sat on the bed, not ready yet to return to the gathering. It was David’s third funeral that year, but the loss of Thelma hit him deeply. She’d always had more confidence in him than he had in himself.
After a while, Birdy came in and quietly sat beside him. He took her hand and held it, unable to speak. “All these people had their time to grieve, David,” she said softly, rubbing his back with her free hand. “Now it’s your turn.”
He tried to hold back his tears, then gave in, let them come. For the first time in a long, long time, David wept.
Jesse always thought that the world got two for the price of one in David Stoltzfus. His father put in staggeringly long days at the store, then he would tend to the well-being of others. As busy as he was, as weighed down by responsibilities, you never felt as if he didn’t have time for you.
But that only happened if you could find him. It took Jesse four days before his father was available to him. There was the funeral for Thelma Beiler, which meant that everything in town stopped for three days. His father was constantly in demand during the funeral period.
But on the fourth day, Jesse went to the house as soon as he finished breakfast. He found his father in the barn, checking the cow’s hoof. “Dad, there’s a problem.”
His father didn’t even look up. “I know. I’m going to have to call the vet.”
“Not with Moomoo. With the store.” His father looked up from his task. At long last Jesse had his full attention. “Why in the world did you hire Jenny Yoder?”
“Because I need help and not one of my children want to work at the store. Not even Molly.”
“Dad, Jenny Yoder has an ulterior motive.”
His dad rose to his feet, grabbed a rag from the stall door, and wiped his hands. “Son, just what has got you so tied up in a knot?”
“Jenny’s got designs on me.”
His eyebrows lifted. “You? You think you’re the reason why Jenny is working part-time at the Bent N’ Dent?”
Jesse nodded knowingly. “It came as a shock to me as well.”
His father did not seem to be quite as shocked by the revelation as he had expected. A smile crept over his father’s face. “And just what leads you to believe this?”
Jesse lifted his hand and pressed down fingers as he rolled off his reasons. “She arrives out of the blue at a time when Mim Schrock is away. She lives at Windmill Farm where I happen to live. Now she works at my father’s store. It’s so obvious.”
David leaned against a bale of hay. “I thought Mim Schrock was devoted to Danny Riehl.”
“Maybe for now, but I’m just biding my time for Mim to come to her senses.”
“One thing I’ve always wondered about your interest in Mim Schrock . . .”
Jesse was all ears.
“It’s always seemed like a pretty safe bet, considering she’s Danny’s girl.”
A sense of umbrage poked Jesse’s pride. Did his father think he wasn’t aware that Danny Riehl continually edged him out with Mim? “What exactly is your point, Dad?”
“Have you ever wondered if you’re devoted to Mim Schrock because she’s not available?”
“Interesting point,” Jesse said agreeably, as if he had wondered it himself. He had not wondered. “However, let’s not get sidetracked and ignore the crisis that sits before us. Jenny Yoder has set her sights on me.”
“Has she said as much?”
“No. But she’s everywhere I am. Everywhere.”
“It’s a pretty small town, Jesse. Hard to avoid anybody.”
“Especially when they live at Windmill Farm.”
David folded his arms against his chest. “And you think she arrived because she heard you were there.”
“Yes. Probably.”
“Why do I feel as if there’s a Hank Lapp ‘theory on women’ behind this?”
Because there was, but Jesse didn’t feel the need to admit that.
“Sounds like Jenny Yoder has really gotten under your skin. She is a lovely girl, isn’t she?”
“Yes. No! I mean, she’s always been an irritant. A pebble in my shoe. A thorn in my side. A cloud in—”
“I get it. In fact, I well remember. I also remember how bothered you were when she left Ohio that one summer.”
“Only because there was talk at the schoolyard that she’d been kidnapped and brutally murdered. I’m not heartless, Dad.”
“Obviously not.”
“Every time I turn around . . . there is Jenny Yoder. Everywhere. Don’t you think it’s more than a coincidence?”
“In fact, I don’t.” His father crossed one ankle over the other and leaned forward. “I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but Fern invited Jenny to come live with them at Windmill Farm.”
“Oh.” Jesse squeezed his eyes shut. This was worse than he thought. “So Fern’s in on the scheme with Jenny.”
His father rolled his eyes. “Jesse, Fern invited her to come because she needed a little extra help.”
“Why?”
“Haven’t you noticed that Amos doesn’t seem himself lately?”
No, Jesse hadn’t. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen Amos doing heavy fieldwork in the last few weeks, only hired hands. Did everybody know everything? “Is it his heart?”
“No, thank heavens. It’s a back injury. He’s in a lot of pain.”
“They could’ve just asked me for help. I do live there.”
“And yet you didn’t notice Amos hasn’t been himself?”
No.
“Jesse, I don’t mean to sound harsh, but it’s not all about you.”
“I know that.” Sort of.
“Son, what all are you doing for other people?”
“Building and repairing buggies.” He lifted his eyes to the barn rafters. “I’m thinking of getting a sign built for the repair shop: Stoltzfus Buggies. Built to Last. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Maybe one day your grandchildren will be talking about Stoltzfus buggies.”
His father winced. “I don’t mean what you’re doing for a profit. Only what you’re doing for others out of kindness.”
Jesse felt his shirt collar grow tight. This physical response to uncomfortable moments was becoming a habit. “Speaking of buggies, I’d better get back to the business.”
“Son. Hold up. It feels pretty nice to do something good for someone else. There’s nothing like service to get our minds off ourselves.”
The direction of this conversation had veered off into an entirely different direction than Jesse had planned. “Right.”
“Jesse, has it occurred to you that all service is worship?”
Oh no. Jesse could sense a sermon about to unfold. One of the many drawbacks of having a father who was a bishop. Sermons seemed to be at the ready, on the top of his mind at all times, just waiting to be delivered to the helpless victim. Jesse lifted a finger in the air. “A scintillating topic for another time. I’m off before Fern goes looking for me. She’s been threatening sudden death if I don’t fix her buggy’s storm front wipers by the time the next rain rolls in. And you know as well as I do, inclement weather can hit at any moment.”
As he flung open the barn door, he had to blink hard and fast against the too bright, too hot summer sun.
Ed Gingerich walked into Dok’s office unannounced and unexpected, raised his eyebrows, and gave her a Have-I-got-a-surprise-for-you smile, one of his facial expressions that Dok found hard to resist. “I’ve been searching everywhere for you.”
Odd. He knew where she was.
> He waved two airline tickets in the air. “You. Me. New York City. This weekend.”
“Ed, you do understand what I’m in the middle of, right?”
There was a long silence, long enough that Dok thought perhaps Ed hadn’t heard her, and she was about to repeat it when he said, “There’s nobody in the waiting room. You aren’t in the middle of anything but an empty practice.” He walked toward her. “Come on, what’s one weekend?” He was giving her his sensitive expression now, which she also liked. Ed did have a sweetness to him, although it appeared only rarely.
This one weekend . . . it was Emily’s and Lydie’s birthday, and Dok was going to do blood pressure screening at the Bent N’ Dent on Saturday morning. And then there was church on Sunday. She hadn’t been to church in far too long. Dok needed the weekend, to keep moving forward. “I’m sorry, Ed. I can’t. I do appreciate the gesture, though.”
“You’re still mad about that little girl’s appendix. You blame me for getting fired.”
“No. Honestly, I’m not mad. I would tell you if I were.”
“Look, Ruth, I blew it. I admit it. I’m trying to make it up to you. Why do you have to make it so difficult?”
What kind of an apology was that? His terms only, that’s what. “Ed, if you really want to make it up to me, then stay here this weekend and help me finish setting up my practice. Go with me to my nieces’ birthday party. You’ve never had time to spend with my family. You’ve got a free weekend. Spend it with me, here in Stoney Ridge.”
He fixed an intense gaze on her. “They’re pulling you back in, aren’t they?”
“Who’s they?”
A horse and buggy rolled by her window and he pointed at it. “Them.”
She let out a laugh. “That’s what you think this is all about?” She swept a hand around her office. “You think I’m feeling tugged back to the Amish?”
“I do. I’ve seen it coming for a while. Using Penn Dutch with patients at the hospital, becoming known in the ER as Dok. There’s something inside you that won’t let it go.”
The Devoted Page 14