by Janette Oke
She stared at him.
“I’ll talk to Miss Phillips—tell her you are leaving. You get your things,” he instructed.
She stared back at him, her eyes and throat dry. Was it really that serious—or was Glenna just suffering mother-panic?
Surely not Jamie. Not Jamie, her heart was crying, but she couldn’t voice the words. Couldn’t even let herself feel them.
“Is it necessary?” she managed to ask Thomas.
He nodded. “He’s hurt quite badly, Berta.”
She did not nod. Did not try to speak. Mutely and dumbly she moved toward her light shawl and hat. By habit, she placed the hat on her smoothly pinned hair. Reached for her gloves and moved woodenly through the door. The next thing she knew they were moving out of the building toward a waiting team and buggy.
Surely, this is all wrong. It’s just a nightmare. It’s not Jamie. It can’t be Jamie. Her scattered thoughts kept fighting against the truth as they rode quickly through the streets.
Thomas helped her from the buggy and led her into the stark, sterile building. Down one hall and then another, around a corner, into a dark room, beyond that to another room, another hall. She did not understand where they were going, but she could fight against it no longer. It must be true. Jamie had been seriously hurt.
She heard a cry, “Oh, Berta,” and Glenna threw herself into her arms. Berta mechanically put her arms around her younger sister and tried to calm her uncontrolled sobs.
“Shh. Shh,” Berta said again and again as she held her. “It’ll be all right. It’ll be all right.”
But Berta had no idea if her words were true.
When Glenna calmed enough to speak she sobbed out the story, as though she had to say it all to make it real. “He was climbing. That tree in the garden—after his kitten. He slipped and fell. He hit his head on a rock and—and—” She began to weep again.
Berta felt her anxiety being replaced by anger. Why had they let Jamie climb the tree? Why hadn’t someone been watching the boy? What kind of mother was Glenna—?
But immediately she knew she wasn’t being fair. No mother could protect a child twenty-four hours a day.
“Does Mama know?” she asked Glenna.
“Thomas has gone to her.”
It was the first Berta realized that Thomas had left them. Distractedly, she wondered when he had slipped away.
Glenna was wiping at tears that streamed down her cheeks. “We need prayer,” she whispered through trembling lips. “Lots of prayer. Parker says that only a miracle—”
Surely not, thought Berta. He’s a doctor. What did he train for if he couldn’t do anything? He’s supposed to be able to fix things, she mentally accused.
“I asked our neighbor boy to run to Pastor Jenkins,” Glenna told her. “He’ll ask Deacon Burns to get the word out to the congregation. We need to pray.” Glenna almost fell back into the chair behind her and bowed her tear-streaked face into her hands to resume praying.
Berta lowered herself slowly into the chair beside her. She felt helpless. Wooden. She should pray Glenna was counting on her.
But she couldn’t pray She couldn’t think. All she could do was moan. An image of Mrs. Tinker flashed into her mind. She understood her for the first time. Some things were felt far too deeply to be expressed in words—even in prayer.
————
The hours in the hospital corridor dragged slowly by. Pastor Jenkins came with his Bible and sympathy. Thomas finally returned with Mrs. Berdette. They huddled together, weeping and praying. Now and then Parker came out to Glenna or sent word with another doctor or a nurse. Berta couldn’t understand the words. The talk. Her mind refused to accept anything that was being said.
It cannot be. It must not be. It is not my Jamie they are talking about. It was not Glenna’s little boy who was hanging on to life by a thread. Surely his doctor father would be able to do something.
All through the long night Berta agonized. With all her heart she longed for the morning. With morning this will all pass away, she told herself. Things will straighten out in the morning. They’ll know what to do for him, come morning. Things are always more easily understood by the light of day, she reassured herself.
“Would you like to see him?”
Parker stood by her side, looking exhausted. He still wore hospital whites and his surgical mask had slipped down haphazardly covering his Adam’s apple rather than his nose and mouth.
Berta was about to say no, then she realized that she could not. She had to see him. She knew that. She stood unsteadily to her feet. Someone was taking her elbow, steering her down a long, empty hall. It was not Parker. He was on her other side.
Berta walked on, her legs rubbery, her mind in a haze. They passed through a door and into a brightly lit room. On the hospital table a small form was bundled. Bandages and tubes filled her with nameless dread. She didn’t understand what they represented, and she realized she didn’t wish to know either.
They moved her closer, almost against her will, and then she was looking down upon the face of little Jamie. He was so pale, so lifeless. So little.
A sob broke from Berta’s lips. She caught herself before another could escape from her.
She stood for a moment with eyes closed, her mind and emotions reeling from shock and sorrow, and then she took hold of herself. She determinedly opened her eyes again, pushed back whoever was supporting her, leaned over the little boy and said in a firm, nearly calm voice, “Jamie. Jamie, listen to me. You get better. Do you hear? Rosie—”
For a moment she choked and could not go on, but she fought for control again. “Rosie needs her big brother. She likes you best. Remember?”
But she did not say the words that were in her heart. The words that she ached to say. Jamie, I love you. I love you. Yes. The answers yes—Ilove you.
There was not even a twitch or a blink in response to her voice. Slowly she straightened, turned, and left the room.
It wasn’t even a half hour later that a heartbroken Parker returned with the news that little Jamie was gone.
Chapter Seventeen
Strength
The months that followed were bleak and empty. Berta wished she could hide from the entire world. She wanted to shut herself away, close her eyes, stop her ears, and deny that it had ever happened. The deep, dark pain she was feeling was almost more than she could bear. Surely it too was as unreal as the tragedy itself.
But to any observers around her she carried on as usual. Berta was the strength for her mother, who grieved openly for her first grandchild, the small grandson she had lost. She was her sister’s support and comforter as Glenna mourned the loss of her son. Berta continued doing what needed to be done, caring for the things that needed to be cared for, going through the motions of being alive.
“Berta is so strong,” members of the congregation said often.
“I don’t know what the family would do without Berta,” community people said to one another.
And then the family was dealt a second blow. Granna passed away in her sleep. Another grave was prepared in the little churchyard cemetery.
“Can she be right beside Jamie?” asked Glenna, her voice breaking. “He seems so little to be left all alone there.”
Berta thought she’d never be able to go through another family funeral, but the sight of her mother, shoulders bent, face pale and wan, made her straighten her back with determination. Her mother needed her as never before.
It was Glenna who seemed to work her way through the grief first. Berta wondered how she could still smile after what she had been through, but gentle, loving Glenna seemed even more joyous than she had been before.
It puzzled Berta. At times it even angered her. She found herself drawing away from Glenna. How could his own mother forget little Jamie so quickly and carry on with life as though—as though he had never existed?
Of course, there was small Rosie. Glenna seemed to take special delight in Rosie. But to Berta, t
he little girl with her smiles and coos was just a painful reminder of Jamie, who had loved her so.
And then Glenna was pregnant again. That, too, bothered Berta. Was Glenna trying to get a replacement for Jamie? Didn’t she know that Jamie could not be replaced? There would never be another child like Jamie. Never.
The pain and anger twisted and turned within Berta, making her more and more withdrawn. More and more angry with life. And even angrier with God.
———
The church was having trouble finding a man to replace Pastor Jenkins. Much to the appreciation of the little congregation, the kind man agreed to stay on until a replacement could be found.
“Oh, I’m so glad,” said Glenna with deep feeling. “We need a minister so much right now.”
Berta frowned.
“I don’t know how I would have ever made it through the—dark days—without Pastor Jenkins and his prayers,” Glenna explained.
Berta said nothing.
Tears gathered in Glenna’s eyes.
“Oh, Berta,” she said, dabbing at the tears. “Some days I miss him so, I just—ache all over.”
Berta still did not speak.
“Pastor said that we all—grieve in our own way. That we find healing at different speeds. The process has been a slow—and painful one for me. I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever really feel whole again,” continued Glenna.
Berta swallowed her unkind words. She wished to say that Glenna, with her chortling toddler Rosie, and her new baby on the way, seemed to be doing just fine without Jamie.
“If it hadn’t been—there were so many times that I—I didn’t want to even go on. I just—just—longed to—to curl up and die,” Glenna continued.
If Berta had not suffered so deeply herself she could not have understood Glenna’s words. As it was, she felt her sister was expressing her own dark thoughts.
“So how did you—manage?” she finally muttered. She wished to say, How could you appear so happy if you were so deeply sad? but she feared that Glenna would not understand the words or the bitterness that edged them.
“God,” breathed Glenna. “I have never felt God so—real. So close to me. It is as though—as though He has been right there beside me—holding me up. Helping me through each day. He is so close. So close.”
That’s odd, thought Berta. I have always felt He was so far away. In fact, I’ve wondered if He was really there at all….
Thomas purchased an automobile, a no-nonsense dark Ford with a covered top.
“I didn’t think you would want to ride in the open,” he told Berta. She didn’t even think to wonder why her wishes would be considered.
“I thought you might like to call on your mother,” he went on. “It will take far less time by car than by buggy.”
Berta knew that was so. She had ridden with Parker and Glenna on one of their trips to the farm. She had been amazed at how quickly Parker’s automobile had covered the miles. Parker had purchased a car as soon as he could, since it would save him countless hours when calling on patients.
“It could mean the difference between life and death,” he had told Glenna in Berta’s hearing.
I don’t know, thought Berta bitterly. You were there with Jamie the total time, and it made no difference. But Berta did not say the words.
Berta felt no interest nor attraction to cars. Not Parker’s neat gray Hudson or Thomas’s dark Ford, but she did agree that she should take a trip to check on her mother and it would be foolish to decline Thomas’s offer.
“I’ll get my things,” she said in answer to his invitation.
“Be sure to bring a scarf for your head,” he called after her. “It gets chilly.”
Berta nodded as she walked away.
Berta was concerned as soon as she walked into the farm home. Things did not seem to be as they should. Her mother looked wan and listless.
“Mama,” she coaxed. “You really shouldn’t be staying here alone. Please—come into town with me.”
But her mother shook her head stubbornly.
“I don’t wish to interfere in your life, dear,” she answered. “And really, I quite like it here. I’m familiar with every nook and cranny of this old house. I feel I belong here. I don’t think I’d like the city.”
“But you shouldn’t be alone,” argued Berta.
“And why not?”
“You’re—not strong enough—anymore. You’ve been through so much the last months. Come with me until—until you get back on your feet again.”
“I don’t think so,” the woman replied. “John will keep an eye on me. He’s close-by.”
“But John can’t watch over you every minute. You could fall—or … ”
“Or what? What’s the worst that could possibly happen to me? Death? We all have to die.”
“Mama, don’t talk that way,” cut in Berta sharply. “It’s not—at all—proper.”
Mrs. Berdette sighed. “You’re right,” she said. Berta saw tears in her eyes. “But I don’t fear death like I once did. I don’t even—dread it. Sometimes I think I might even welcome—”
“That’s foolish talk,” Berta interrupted again. It unnerved her to hear her mother saying such morbid things.
“Death is the only gate to heaven,” her mother said frankly. “Why should we who are on the right path make such a fuss about walking through the gate?”
Berta did not wish to hear any more. “Won’t you come?” she asked, trying to change the topic back to the present need.
“I don’t think so. At least not yet. I want to stay right here and watch spring come again. I always enjoy the springtime. So did Mama. I’m sorry she isn’t here to see it this year.”
She would soon be back to talking about death again. Berta did not want another little discourse on the topic.
“Well, we must get back to town before dark. If you won’t come, then I guess I can’t force you. But I do wish you would reconsider.”
Mrs. Berdette shook her head. “I feel closer to—family when I’m here,” she said simply.
Berta left, still agitated and anxious.
———
They did finally find a new pastor. When she heard about it, Berta did not feel particularly enthusiastic or even curious. In fact, it had been some time since she had felt excited about church or anything else in her life.
With no emotion whatsoever, she settled herself in her familiar pew on his first Sunday. As she had come to do on every Sunday morning, she kept her eyes straight ahead, as though allowing them to turn to the empty place beside her would be a painful reminder that Jamie was still—and always would be—missing.
The energetic Rosie had never asked to sit with Aunt Berty. Berta doubted that she ever would. Rosie was not Jamie. Rosie never responded so warmly to her stern Aunt Berty as Jamie had done. The little girl was much too busy keeping her father and mother on the run to think about sitting with anyone.
Berta smoothed her skirt, picked up the hymnal, and disinterestedly watched the new man take his place on the familiar platform.
The service proceeded as usual. Deacon Burns introduced the new pastor with a great deal of fervor, about how God had led and assisted in the search for the right man, and his own confidence that such a man had been found. At last he turned the pulpit over to the new minister.
Berta was not listening too closely. Ever since they had lost Jamie, she had developed a bad habit of letting her Sunday thoughts wander to other things.
Her attention was suddenly jerked back to the present when she heard the man ask with forceful candor, “Why am I here?”
Concentrating on what he was saying, she heard, “ … here because I believe in God.”
That isn’t really such a surprise, she reasoned.
“I believe in a God,” the man went on, emphasizing the “a.”
“I think it is perfectly reasonable to believe in a God. Not—many gods. Many gods would result in chaos. Lesser gods—greater gods—warring gods—s
elf-seeking gods. Can you imagine such a world? It wouldn’t work. If a god isn’t really God of all—then he is no god at all. Therefore I believe in one God—the God—the reason for all that is and all that ever will be.”
Berta shifted slightly and prepared to see where he was headed with these declarations.
“So—to me it has been settled. Forever. Clearly. I believe in one God—Creator and Sustainer of all things.”
He stopped for a breath and glanced down at his open Bible.
“Since this Creator God has given us His Word, then it follows that I must also believe that the Bible—which tells us of Him—is truth. It is His revelation to mankind. The oldest and most accurate of religious documents—revealing who He is and what He stands for.”
He held up the well-worn volume before him.
“So,” he paused a moment, “I believe in one God—Creator and Sustainer of all things, and I believe that the Bible is His revelation to mankind of who and what He is.
“If I believe the Bible is given by Him, and He is God—the God—then I must accept this Book as it is. All of it. To dissect it and choose this and throw out that would discredit it all. To pick my own passages to please my own theories or personal pet doctrines, or pattern my own philosophies or religion on what tickles my ears or pleases my fancy, and reject what else it says, would invalidate the whole. So I must believe and accept it all—for what it says throughout.
“Thus—I believe in one God—the God—One, though triune—Maker and Sustainer of all things.
“I believe the Bible is His revelation to mankind.
“I believe the Bible must be accepted and obeyed in its entirety. It is the written Word of God.”
He paused and studied his congregation.
“So all my sermons will come directly from these pages.” He held up his Bible again. “We will study together what the Word says. We will pray for understanding and His wisdom. We will pray for willingness to accept with open hearts and minds what that means for you—for me—in our everyday living.
“We face hard questions in our modern world—but the answers are here in this Book. To find the answers we must first know the Source—God. God the Father—who loves us. God the Son—who redeems us. God the Spirit—who leads us. One God, yet three in person—in workings, a mystery—beyond our human comprehension, but one God.