26 and Change

by Deacon Rie

  "Then again," he reasoned aloud, "after an 18 mile run who said he had to choose just one?"

  Now rounding the corner of his neighborhood entrance, confidently wiping more sweat from his eyes, Stephen's feet smoothed across the transition from the road's warming pavement and onto the familiarity of the sidewalk. Another mile and he would be home, completing the longest training run he had ever done. Race day was a mere few weeks away and finishing this run put him right on track to be ready. The muscles in his legs surged with energy, and he knew he could push through another few miles if he had to.

  The gradual incline leading to their home had no chance of standing between Stephen and the king's breakfast he had planned. He challenged the hill and hit it hard with each burst of his legs and pumped his arms for extra measure. His head was tilted down and he clenched his jaw with the sheer determination of a victorious gladiator. He was about a quarter of a mile away when he saw Sarah standing in their front yard, apparently waiting on him. He thought it was a little out of the ordinary for her to be outside, compared to the normal post-training run greeting he typically received while dripping his way into the kitchen.

  Concern began to snare him and his heart raced even faster when he realized she was standing in the front yard holding her arms together, and crying. Thoughts of training, breakfast and even the hill’s incline bolted from of his mind as Stephen sprinted towards his wife. As he got closer he could see the streaks of freshly applied mascara running down her cheeks which told him that whatever was wrong had just happened. Sarah held their cordless phone close to her chest and her chin periodically bounced against it as her body shook uncontrollably.

  "Sarah, what's wrong? Is Hailey alright?" Stephen called out as loud as he could while still sprinting up the hill towards her.

  When Sarah didn't answer, when it became obvious to him that Sarah couldn't answer, Stephen ran straight up to her and slowed about three feet in front before embracing her. She continued to cry but the release made it clear she had been holding back the strongest of her tears. The touch of her husband's embrace caused her to drop her resistance and her body went limp under a wave of emotion. Stephen caught her full weight and held her tightly against his own pounding chest. "I've got you. Sarah! I've got you. I won't let you fall."

  His own nerves tingled with panic. He tried to calm them by coaching himself. What's going on? Keep it together. Don't let go of her.

  Stephen's internal voice turned to shouting; he had no idea what had happened or how bad it was. All he could think about was the last time he saw Hailey in that hospital bed. Now he questioned why they thought it was alright to even leave her for even a second, much less overnight.

  She was in the hospital. She was doing great when we left. What could have possibly happened?

  Dark thoughts entered Stephen's mind and he crushed his eyes shut, shaking his head as if to knock away even the hint of losing Hailey. When he opened them again, he couldn't make out images in front of him as the pools of his own tears blinded his sight. He held Sarah tighter as she continued to cry.

  You are where you need to be. Don't let go. Just hold her.

  Sarah's hair clung undisturbed to his stubbled chin in the motionless air. Every path his mind went down ended with Hailey and dark thoughts shredded his heart. Devastated by the silent chaos engulfing him, his own emotions threatened panic and anarchy under his thin grip of control. Yet through confusion and panic, he had a sense at that moment, it was best not to say anything, best for him to do nothing. He focused on holding the weight of his wife's grief on his chest, each splash of her tears onto his bare arms caused his own soul to plummet and plea an aimless prayer to whomever could hear the desperate cries of his heart.

  Don't let go. Just hold her.

  He looked to the sky and held Sarah with the frail hints of strength left in him. His own tears made their way down his contorted face. He told himself that he needed to remain calm, quiet and steady for the moment. Amid sweat and tears, he was made fully aware of his own helplessness, and that standing there in his own self-imposed silence was the single hardest thing he had ever done.

  Just hold her.

  Mile 19

  The twin oversized oak-stained doors, designed to give the impression of entering a grand cathedral, were reverently opened by two unassuming ushers in pressed and tailored navy blue blazers. As he crossed through the foyer, the heels of Stephen's wing tip shoes issued a click with each step along the ceramic tile floor and echoed down the tubes of two perpendicular hallways. Embarrassed to be the one disrupting the dense silence, Stephen blushed. He escorted Hailey across the foyer in her new wheelchair. Still weakened from finishing the latest round of her treatment, they had all agreed now was not the time to test her strength. As he pushed her over the high-polish flooring, Stephen noticed that the wheelchair had a catch and was causing a periodic squeak which seemed to only draw more attention to their entrance.

  He leaned over and gave a lighthearted whisper into Hailey’s ear, “Between my shoes and your chair, we’re one instrument shy of having a traveling band.”

  Without looking back, Hailey gripped his hand and held on to it. Stephen envisioned her tear-soaked smile as they continued along the hallway until they met up with Sarah. He reached out to her and accepted his wife’s weary embrace.

  Rebecca's fatal heart attack had been sudden and swift. The attending paramedics suggested she likely slept through the brief ordeal and drifted into the night peacefully where she lay. They were told that she hadn't even stirred enough to wake her husband. Apparently, this was indicative of some fast-acting, pain-concealing chemical response in the brain which allowed her to pass without knowing anything was wrong with her body. Stephen didn't know how much of that was the paramedics' accurate assessment or an attempted elaboration to help the distraught family members feel better. For him it didn't matter. He had a sober reality about death. Stephen knew a quick death was far better than the anticipation of watching as the reaper slowly made his way to your doorway, or a hallway. Stephen had been through that terror before. Instead, his mother had apparently passed in the night without suffering. If it brought an ounce of comfort to anyone, and it did for Sarah and Hailey, then he was perfectly comfortable endorsing the medics' assessment, even if they included elaborations. He rested a kiss on Sarah’s forehead and the three walked arm in arm towards the narthex of a church he knew was all too unfamiliar to him.

  The congregation of Grace Fellowship Church were among the kindest people Stephen had ever met. In previous years, accompanying his mother on errands sometimes resulted in a chance meeting with the someone she knew from church. He had always been amazed at how she could bump into a random congregant regardless of what store or cafe they visited. Often, as if fate's cup refused to be overfilled, within minutes of seeing someone she knew, others from her congregation would randomly appear. Stephen liked to joke with her about them dropping in from the ceiling rafters. As odd as the scene would become, he couldn't help but enjoy how every church friend who had haphazardly appeared equally surprised and joyful to see the others. One would have thought they were long lost friends who hadn't seen each other in years, instead of the actual four days which had passed from the prior Sunday.

  His mother's friends were always generous in their appreciation of his military service; no doubt enlightened by the near permanent placement his name had on Rebecca's prayer lists. He lovingly harassed his mother for placing the details of his life upon a bulletin board for all to read. But he didn't know exactly what they were praying for or how many lists his mother had put his name on. What he did know was that the congregants of Grace Fellowship Church were always aware of his deployments, surgeries, recovery progress and even his job hunt. That insight alone made Stephen a bit uncomfortable to be in their presence. It was awkward for him, not just because they seemed to know specifics of his life, but because he became convinced that when they said they were praying for him, they actually were. H
e didn't know these people and they weren't what he would consider personal friends, but they knew him. They didn't know him just through periodic updates provided by Rebecca, but through the fact that they actively thought about him on a regular basis.

  He never felt anything but compassion in their tone, but he had no desire to get to know them any better. Even when they would repeatedly invite him to another random church event, he found it easy to say no without even the burden of coming up with an excuse. Stephen's agnostic views of religion and faith had been hardened by glimpsing the world through a gritty lens which only drew his attention to its blemishes and imperfections. Experiences of his own life taught him that it was too far of a stretch to buy into the idea of a caring god. If there was some almighty deity up there, Stephen didn't think he had a much of a care for the broken and messed up people he had created.

  Church was his mother's hobby. He was glad she had somewhere to belong and be social with but to Stephen's irritation, he watched her use her faith as a crutch. Whenever she struggled with something she would talk to him about "turning it over to the Lord." She talked to him about things like giving up control and trusting in Jesus for strength, but Stephen lived in the real world and knew he had real people relying on him. In his mind, Stephen didn't have the luxury of reaching out for a crutch. He felt he had responsibilities and it was up to him to resolve complexities in a practical way.

  As he led Hailey and Sarah down the center aisle, Stephen recalled a regretful conversation he had with Rebecca just a couple of weeks before. He had gotten overly worked up when his mother had challenged him on his dismissal of her faith. Unintentionally, Rebecca had released a dam of pent up emotion and Stephen berated her with rhetorical questions about God’s goodness. He questioned where that goodness was during the atrocities being committed by God's supposed devotees who slaughtered hundreds of innocents in Fallujah? Or The Almighty’s whereabouts when that brutal roadside explosion hit them and the deadly chaos which followed. He told her about the little boy laying under the ruble of that blown out room, a rifle clenched in his hand. A rifle meant to kill Americans. A rifle that could have easily been used to kill him, if some other soldier hadn't first blown that little boy out of a window. With accusation dripping from every word, he dismissed everything she claimed to stand for, "Where's God's goodness in that?"

  Rebecca had made an attempt to back off but Stephen couldn't calm himself. A door had been opened and he continued arguing with her about when he and Waters laid there shot up and ready to die in that random, busted out Iraqi building. He pressed at how that it wasn't some all-caring deity who opened the twenty foot hole in the exterior; that modern take on parting the Red Sea was done by his brothers in an Abram tank. Rebecca had made a heartfelt plea for her son to look through the pain and see the gifts he had been given, the life he had been blessed with. But Stephen's ears were closed and he drove a hammer into the nail of his mother’s undeserved punishment by throwing the unanswerable at her. "Tell me Mom, what sort of a 'loving father' would let his child get cancer if he could control it. No," Stephen had protested, "God either didn't care, or he wasn't capable. Let me know when you figure out which one it is."

  Her tears had flowed freely at the revelation of just how deep a well her son's pain drew from. But despite his hostility, she was ready to forgive him as easily as if his eight year old self had dropped a cookie on the floor. She made apologies for upsetting him and reminded him of how a mother's love endures through difficulties and differences. Stephen acknowledged her amends but only granted a curt, "I'm sorry, too." While inside, the eight year old boy just wanted to curl into her arms and be comforted by the warmth of his tender mother.

  During their next meeting together, Stephen brought the situation up and Ray talked about how it wasn't entirely uncommon for returning soldiers to respond with an excess of explosiveness when they get upset. Ray wasn't the type of guy to dish out heavy doses of absolution. But he did help Stephen understand that there was a reason Rebecca had struck such a nerve in their conversation. It actually had nothing to do with the conversation about religion but instead, it was Stephen's outlet for a lot of other anger he had built up.

  "We hold our tempers in public out of fear of a public scorn. The people we're most comfortable giving that wrath to is actually our loved ones." Ray had explained with a calming but assertive tone, "It's like our wall comes down and we can relax with them. Unfortunately for them, some of those walls that come down are there for a purpose. Family members are the ones who are always around and we unconsciously we think they'll continue to put up with us, regardless of how badly we treat them. Plus we usually have enough history with them to find an unburied hatchet lying around that we can just grab and use. In the end, our loved ones make the best targets."

  "So what you're saying is that the problem is with me again?" Stephen retorted with an unsaid admission of the obvious.

  "Listen Stephen. The things you've been through, some of them were pretty bad. I ain't gonna lie to you. That stuff don't just go away. That probably won't ever go away. You need to understand that it's not your fault. It's not your fault, but it is your problem. So quit trying to figure it out and instead, just deal with it. And that starts with acknowledging that the pain is still there."

  Back at the church, Stephen looked around and examined the warm tones and soft color schemes designed to enhance the spacious sanctuary. There was pleasantness in the surroundings but the real estate appraiser in him couldn't help but begin making estimates. His keen eye observed the quality of fixtures, the contours of the craftsmanship, the apparent extra expenditure for architectural design work, nearly offset by misaligned corners which spoke to shoddy drywall placement and a contractor who had probably cut too many corners. Whatever spiritual element was supposed to be present, Stephen could see no further appeal beyond the value of the building. But for some reason all this meant something to Rebecca. It meant a lot to her and while he knew this church was the thing that brought such a dramatic change into her life, it frustrated him that he of all people, couldn't see what she had seen within these walls. He couldn't feel what she had felt.

  Looking across pews of mourners, he pushed away distant memories asking to come in. They were too much. There were too many for him to not get lost in the shell of them. So he pushed them away. He pushed away the laughter he and Rebecca had over a collapsing lemonade stand. He pushed away their contractually bound pinky swear not to tell his father about staying up way after bedtime watching The Late Show and eating Oreos together in her bed. He pushed away the warm embrace she gave his broken body in that hospital bed the moment she could know for certain he was alive. He hadn't been aware of how desperately he needed that embrace until that moment; the moment of comfort from her arms he had hoped would never end. There were too many memories with too high an entry price to let any of them stay so he let them wash over him and one by one, he let them drift away. His thoughts settled back to the building.

  Why was this place so important to her?

  Let it go. She's gone. Quit trying to figure it out and instead, just deal with it.

  Several friends in grief gently touched his arm with offers of condolences as they passed the Lantz family. The pews of the church were filled, with many attendees patiently taking a place in the back and standing against the tiled wall. Stephen led his family to the front row where an elderly man serving as an usher carefully held up the gold and red cord for their reserved seating. He recognized the man as one of the many visitors who had come to see Hailey while she had been in the hospital.

  With eyes which told the story of one who had done this job more times than he cared to remember, the usher met Stephen's shoulder with a tender but purposeful grip. "Stephen, I'm very sorry for you and your family's loss. She was a great friend who served everyone with a really big heart. I don't know if you're aware of how special your mother was to this congregation. She was a reflection of the Lord's work within us and sh
e wanted others to reflect His love. I tell ya, your mother was a rock and we're going to miss her dearly." He was steady, sincere, and had the trusted voice of someone narrating a documentary.

  "Thank you." was all Stephen could murmur.

  The gentleman leaned in, "Son,” he continued, “she's with the Lord now, some place she genuinely looked forward to being. But I want you to know we're here for you." Still gripping Stephen's shoulder, he looked around at the crammed pews, many of the faces were staring back at them. "We're all here for you."

  Stephen was uncomfortable having so many people looking at him but there was a reassurance delivered by their sympathetic and unassuming faces. "Thank you very much. I know she loved this church,” he replied, shaken to his core, but deeply touched by the care and concern which accompanied the man’s sympathetic words.

  As Stephen helped Hailey out of her wheelchair and into the pew, he took note at how the entire chancel had been converted into a makeshift nursery. A splattering of color from flowers of all shapes and sizes combined in different arrangements. Each bore a personal card Stephen would eventually get around to asking Sarah to read. For now, he stared at the oversized picture of his mother in the center and he felt a swelling in his eyes. The portrait was beautiful and the smile on Rebecca's face across the canvas illuminate the floral arrangement in the same manner her service had done for those who knew her.

  Tom was already seated in the pew when Hailey shifted over and snuggled in next to him. Tom's face remained emotionless and drifted ahead with the same blank stare Stephen had seen for years. He couldn't tell what his father was thinking. There was no way of telling how Tom would respond to the loss of his bride of nearly fifty-five years. The man was clearly aware of Rebecca's passing but how much he could understand was immeasurable. Questions filled Stephen's mind about his father's care.