Beyond Heaven and Earth

by Steven H. Propp

  A tired-looking African-American woman came out from a side room with a stack of file folders in her arms, and said, “Yes, Mr. Winter? What’s the matter?”

  “I think something’s wrong with my wife, in Room 314; she’s kind of twitching and jerking…”

  The nurse looked serious, and quickly placed the folders on the main desk, and looked at her computer monitor. After a second, she looked genuinely alarmed, and called “Akisha! Watch the desk for me! And call the doctor!” and then she raced off down the hall, with me following close behind.

  As we approached the door to Sophia’s room, I heard a faint buzzing sound, that grew louder as we got closer. The nurse apparently recognized the sound, and said, “Oh, my God…!” then turned back and yelled, “We need a doctor in 314! Hurry!” then she turned and ran through the door of Sophia’s room, with me hot on her heels. She took one look at the monitors behind Sophia, then began to examine her rapidly. She tore open Sophia’s gown, leaving her bare breasts exposed, and placed her head against her chest. She pointed to me and said, “Get out in the hall, and show the doctor which room!” I jumped up, and, racing through the door, almost collided with the young doctor, who was just about to enter.

  “How long?” he asked the nurse, insistently, as he listened to her chest and felt her pulse.

  “Probably just a couple of minutes,” she said, pointing in my direction. “He said she was kind of jerking, so he came to get me, then we heard the monitors on the way down the hall.”

  “Get Doctor Virga! Now!!” the doctor hissed, almost shouting. The nurse started to head for the door, when another nurse at the door shouted, “I’ll do it!” and she turned and ran down the hall.

  My heart was beating furiously, and I started to panic. Thank God, the doctor’s finally here; hold on, honey, help is here. And I had a sickening moment of realization, knowing that she’s going to lose the baby. I instinctively moved closer to Sophia, protectively.

  The insistent buzzing continued from the monitors behind Sophia. “Move!” the doctor ordered me, as he shoved me aside to position himself alongside Sophia. He barked out some medical instructions I didn’t understand to the nurse, who bolted out the door. He then began to apply CPR: 3 quick breaths, 7 chest compressions; 2 breaths, 7 compressions.

  Oh my God; what’s happening?

  Another nurse came rushing in, pushing a cart of sophisticated-looking equipment, followed by another doctor, who came immediately to the opposite side of the bed.

  “Still…no pulse…,” puffed the first doctor, continuing to perform CPR. “It’s been several minutes,” said the first nurse, as the other doctor readied what I recognized as the device used to restart a patient’s heart. She’s going to be OK, isn’t she?

  I mean…we’re in a hospital, for God’s sake! The second doctor waved the first back, applied the twin devices to Sophia’s chest, and shouted, “Clear!” then jolted her, the shock causing her to bounce up on the bed. The first doctor frantically checked her pulse, as well as the monitors behind Sophia. “Nothing,” he said, grimly. The second doctor nodded, then said, “Charging…clear!” and jolted her again, causing her body to leap off the bed once again. The first doctor quickly did his assessment again, and shook his head, saying, “Still nothing.”

  I fell back against the fall, to keep from collapsing. Tears streaming down my face, I thought, This can’t be happening…In a daze, I could see figures rushing around Sophia on the bed, increasingly agitated, until finally they all stopped moving, and stood silently around Sophia’s bed. What’s happening? Is she better? Why has everyone stopped working?

  Finally, the second doctor walked slowly over to me, as I stood stiffly against the wall. My eyes filled with fear, I could see that there were tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry, son,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “She’s gone.”

  In disbelief, I looked at him, then at the other three figures standing around Sophia’s bed. They all looked at me, their eyes wide with sympathy and sorrow, but without contradicting him, or providing any explanation for how this calamity could have happened. I shook my head at the doctor and mouthed the word “No” noiselessly, but the doctor shook his head grimly.

  “This can’t happen!!” I shouted, at no one in particular. “Jesus Christ, we’re in a fucking hospital, for God’s sake! She wasn’t even in intensive care! My wife can’t just die like this—she just can’t, goddam it!!” They let me shout, and I could see tears of remorse in their own eyes. Goddam bastards, they’ve given up—that means it’s up to me, and I pushed them away from her bed.

  I’d seen movies about how people who had been pronounced “medically dead” came back to life, even thirty minutes later. You just had to reach them, to pull them back from the darkness they were falling into. I raised my hand to slap Sophia’s face sharply, like I’d seen done in movies, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I took hold of her shoulders, and shook her as much as I dared. “Sophia!” I shouted at her, hoarsely. “Sophia, listen to me! You’ve got to fight it! You hear me? You’re got to come back to me!” I shook her shoulders again, more vigorously, but there was no response from her. “Sophia, please! Fight it! Fight it, honey!!” Still no response. In a desperate voice, I said, “This can’t be the end, Sophia—we’ve got our whole lives ahead of us, we’ve got our baby on the way…”

  It can’t end like this! It was too ridiculous, too absurd. She had been the picture of health only a month ago, and now her body was lying before me lifeless. Her flesh still felt warm, and her skin was still soft and gentle to the touch. Turning around, I shouted in a crazed voice, “There’s got to be something you can do for her, goddammit!” The doctor shook his head, sadly.

  Embracing her limp body tightly, I entreated her, “Sophia…Sophia, please don’t leave me! Honey, I need you so much…I won’t be able to live without you! Can you hear me? People can come back to life, if their spirits fight hard enough! Can you hear me? Fight it—fight it!! Come back…you’ve got a strong spirit, honey, we both know that; you’ve got to live!”

  I looked around at the four faces around the bed, all of their own eyes wet with emotion. There was no hope, no ray of light in their eyes; only profound sadness.

  Gently, I lowered Sophia’s body back to the bed. Kneeling by the bed, I carefully brushed her hair—which was matted with sweat—back into place. In a cracked voice, I whispered, “You can’t leave me like this, honey; you’ve got too much to live for…and our baby…please, he…she needs you…I need you, my love, my only love….”

  There was so much I needed to say to her. I was struck with the bitter irony of the thousands of hours I had spent by her side, silently, as we watched a movie, listened to the stereo, or walked hand-in-hand. How much wasted time! Time when I should have been pouring out my heart and soul to her, telling her how much she meant to me, how she was the constant, unfailing source of beauty and joy in my life. How many times I had sat by her silently, keeping my innermost feelings inside, when the thing I most needed to do was tell her how I felt. I see now that I had been wrong all this time, thinking that it wasn’t “manly” to show weakness, to show vulnerability. I now knew with an absolute clarity that she would have wanted me to share everything with her, unreservedly; I now knew that she would have loved my openness, my willingness to trust her, to be totally open with her. I can change, Sophia; I really can…just please—come back…

  But now there was nothing that I could do; no power of emotion, no intensity of thought or feeling, nothing I could say or do or offer, that would rouse her even one more time, not even for just a few moments. The doctor laid his hand gently on my shoulder—which brought me back to reality. I knew now that it was really over: Sophia was dead, and nothing that anyone could do would ever change that horrible fact. It seemed too fantastic, too absurd to be true, but it was: right here, in a major metropolitan hospital, my wife had di
ed. The clock showed 9:29.

  A priest entered the room frantically, but the doctor shook his head negatively at him. Nevertheless, he came up to Sophia, and began to administer the last rites to her.

  I fell down to my knees beside her bed, burying my face in her still and lifeless body. The priest’s words droned unintelligibly in my ears, as he prayed for her spirit. It seemed as if, at that very moment, the life had gone out of me, as well.

  And I welcomed death.

  Rather than life without her.

  1

  DE PROFUNDIS*

  (*Latin: “From the depths”)

  Jobran’s Journal

  Why?

  Why??!?

  I keep asking this question, over and over, but there’s no answer.

  You didn’t even allow us a minute to say “goodbye” to each other in the hospital.

  If there was anything I needed to do, any change to my life that was necessary, I would have done it.

  But you took her from me so suddenly, I didn’t even have a chance to think, much less “negotiate” about it.

  Are you punishing me? Then why take it out on my poor wife? What did Sophia ever do to deserve this? She was a good Catholic, who went to Mass and took Communion every Sunday; she wouldn’t even use birth control, for Christ’s sake!

  And the baby we would have had—he would have been a boy, the doctors told me—he never even had a chance in life. He died, when he was no more than a small blob of protoplasm, barely four months old. He will never experience joy, or sorrow; he will never nurse from his mother’s breast, or be tenderly rocked to sleep; he will never feel his father lift him up with pride, and love; he will never know the security of being tucked into bed at night by his two loving parents; he will never know the joy of family get-togethers, of playing happily with his many cousins; he will never hold a squirming kitten, or pat a puppy’s head, or feed the ducks and squirrels in the park; he will never know music, or art, or books; he will never go to school, or graduate, or have his first job, or drive a car; and he will never know the inexpressible joy of falling in love.

  And through it all, I ask myself for the ten thousandth time, Why? But there’s no answer: the heavens are silent.

  Do I really expect an answer? Maybe that’s the problem; I’ve never been the most “religious” person in the world. Born in the late ‘70s, raised a mainstream Protestant, and in due course I was confirmed into the United Church of Christ at age 13—but I was never baptized. (Is that it? Is that why you did this to them? But why not take it out on me?) But I suppose that even after being confirmed into the church, my level of “spirituality” was rather debatable; my favorite part of Sunday Night Youth Group was playing games with the other kids—it was never the brief “lesson,” or the opening and closing prayers, which either bored or embarrassed me.

  But God, even though I was never much interested in formal religion itself, I never really doubted the reality of you, out there somewhere, beneath all the religious language and trappings that people put around you. Even though I was never “regular” in offering prayers to you, I often felt that I was conscious of your presence watching over my life. I always felt that you were somehow overlooking me, and I found myself at various junctures in my life breathing a silent, “Thank you,” in acknowledgment of your guidance or assistance.

  I guess it didn’t make much difference in my everyday life, though, did it? (Is that what the problem is? Is that why you did this?) I went to church when my parents went, which was once a month or so. I secretly envied my sister, when she announced to our parents one Sunday morning that “I’m seventeen, and I don’t need to go to church with you any more.” I never had the courage to make such a statement myself, particularly since I was three years younger.

  But church attendance aside, about once or twice a year, something (maybe seeing “The Ten Commandments” or “Ben-Hur” on cable TV) would motivate me to read the Bible—usually the Gospel of Matthew or Luke. Without fail, I would be deeply moved by the words and the witness of Jesus, and the horror and injustice of his crucifixion. When the centurion declared solemnly, “Truly, this man was the Son of God,” I gave my own (sometimes tearful) affirmation.

  I think that I mostly avoided the Bible the rest of the year because reading it always made me feel so bad about my life afterwards. Invariably after such experiences, I would realize that I had to start “cleaning up” my life: I had to quit sneaking alcohol out of my parents’ liquor cabinet; I had to destroy the pornographic magazines I kept hidden in my room; I had to quit talking with my friends about girls and sex, or else find different friends. In fact, it usually took me several days to get my resolutions out of my mind, and get back to normal; but invariably, I did shortly return to normal.

  But still, I didn’t think I was that bad of a kid—at least, when compared to my peers. I got good grades in school, never got in trouble with the law, didn’t hang out on the streets after curfew. I lost my virginity at sixteen, and slept with one other girl, but they were both sexually active before me. And while I liked to drink at parties with my friends, I never did any harder drugs, aside from trying marijuana twice. Considering that most of the other kids my age smoked weed on a regular basis, and got blind drunk at least every other weekday and every single weekend, I felt like I was doing pretty good; I think my parents thought so, too.

  In many respects, I think I was even more “conservative” in my theology than was the minister of the small church we sometimes attended. During my Confirmation class, for example, I turned in my requested 1-page statement of “What I Believe.” (I said things like, “I believe that God knows everything you do. I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that he performed miracles, and was raised from the dead,” etc.) Since I was the only one in class who had done his assignment, the minister read my statement to the entire group, and I was shocked when (somewhat condescendingly, I now realize) he told the class that in his opinion, one didn’t need to believe in the literal miracles of Jesus in order to be considered a Christian; it was up to the individual, of course, but Christianity was not dependent upon “supernaturalism.” (“And you call yourself a Minister?” I thought, with an air of superior piety.)

  It wasn’t until the last year before this minister retired (and after he had given them his notice of intent to retire) that he actually started to open up more in his sermons before the congregation, about his disbelief in the miraculous stories of the Bible; his belief that the Gospel of John wasn’t a factual account of the life of Jesus, but was just a theological interpretation of Jesus’ life dating from the 2nd century; his belief that the Nativity stories of Jesus’ infancy were little more than Oriental fables; his belief that the Book of Revelation had no relevance for today, and so on. I guess he figured that, with his application for his pension already in, the congregation wouldn’t have had time to fire him, even if anyone in the congregation would get motivated enough to start up a committee to do so. (But of course, no one ever did.) So he retired; but the next minister returned firmly to the middle of the “mainstream,” never openly causing such controversy.

  Inspired by my sister’s earlier example, when I turned seventeen (and had pretty much ignored formal religion for some time) I no longer attended church services at all—to the chagrin of my parents, who had both abandoned much more orthodox religious backgrounds, but evidently felt that they needed to ensure that I had at least some religious indoctrination. I suppose they felt that infrequent but regular attendance at the local congregation of the United Church of Christ (which, as a denomination, seemed to be much more interested in social issues such as foreign affairs, abortion rights, and ordination of openly gay clergy, than in purely “theological” questions) was an acceptable “compromise” between their own backgrounds, and secularism. (Of course, this didn’t mean that they felt that they had to attend church frequently; it just meant t
hat they felt I should have some kind of “religious background.”) After they died in a car accident after my first year in college, I regretted that we hadn’t just taken our Sunday mornings to do something together, as a family.

  But that isn’t to say that religion didn’t have any value to me. I joined the choir in high school (initially because the 4-to-1 ratio of girls to guys attracted me), and I felt that I got a lot more “spiritual uplift” from singing spirituals with them than I did from going to church on Sundays. In fact, at our high school, we had some teachers who (outside of school) ran the local “Young Life” chapter, and who really seemed to be on top of things. I remember one who told a student who asked him after class what denomination he belonged to, and he said, “It doesn’t matter: Baptist, Methodist, Assemblies of God, anything. I’m just a Christian, that’s all.” That seemed like a pretty cool attitude to have, and I think that kind of summarized my feelings: I’m not a churchgoer, a Bible-thumper, or a holy roller; I’m just a plain old Christian.

  I did occasionally get dragged along by some of my friends to more conservative churches, usually when they had a special musical event or guest speaker. I realize now that my friends were concerned because—from their standpoint—I wasn’t “saved.” But when their preacher or minister went into this big emotional trip (the “Invitation,” they called it) at the end of the service, I was always turned off by it. He would be saying, “You know that Jesus is knocking at the door of your heart,” but he obviously didn’t know what he was talking about, because I didn’t feel anything special in my heart, other than disgust at the shallow emotionalism he was appealing to. I felt a lot more close to God and Jesus by reading the New Testament on my own, or watching a religious movie on TV, than when I went to one of these churches. Once I even watched a Billy Graham Crusade on TV, and although he did the “Invitation” thing at the end, I was actually kind of impressed with him, since he didn’t go into a big emotional/psychological routine; you just had the impression that he sincerely believed what he said. But still, the whole “Invitation” thing seemed kind of contrived to me—although maybe that’s just because I wasn’t raised in that kind of a tradition. At any rate, my feeling was that, “I’m already a Christian: I believe in God and in his Son, Jesus; and I always give thanks to God when he helps me out. I don’t need to call some toll-free number that Billy Graham displays on the TV screen, just so they can add my name to their numbers of converts. (And I noticed from reading in the papers that someone always kept track of the numbers of converts that they made in each city; so who knows? Maybe they weren’t only motivated by religion, but also by a desire to keep getting “bigger and bigger” numbers).