Kay had been right. That did jolt Steve. It jolted him right out of himself back into the auditorium of the Reedville High School and to his own address.
“But do we have a right to bring a child into a world that persists in turning every good thing into an evil?” Steve mumbled.
“It goes deeper than that, Steve, and you know it. We should rather be asking if we have a right to deny to the forces of Good and of love in this world a strong and honest advocate. Steve! Think what you are saying! Are you willing to surrender all hope for the triumph of good, of the Kingdom of God, in the world? You keep challenging people wherever you go to confront evil in the world, and you yourself falter before making the small sacrifice now being asked of you. This could be your opportunity to make your most lasting contribution of all. You are a strong and courageous man, Steve, a man of faith.”
She nestled in even closer to him.
“Imagine the potential for good whose fate is lying squarely in your hands at this very moment. And look, just look at when it all came about. Just look at when it happened!”
Kay was done. She had nothing more to say. It was all in Steve’s lap now.
Her last words stung him, though he wasn’t sure quite why. She was clearly making a connection he had not yet made. “Look at it. Look at when it happened!” she had said. Look at what?
They held each other tightly in their arms, his hand still resting on her warm womb.
The picture was gelling in his mind. When had this baby been conceived? On the same occasion on which he had challenged everyone to seize the initiative in the fight against evil, especially in its peaceful guises! That is exactly when he had planted the seed in her womb, the seed that was now their child. The Reedville challenge had withered and died, bearing fruit only in the Eriksens. The Pearson challenge had immediately borne fruit in Kay’s womb. But was it also destined to wither and die, and not just to wither and die, but to be killed in her womb? Kay was telling him that to kill it would be worse by far than to let it die. In her mind, aborting their baby was the equivalent of conceding to the enemy, of giving up any claim to integrity in offering the world a better way.
Long minutes ticked by. At stake now was more than health, more than age, more than marital happiness. At stake now was life itself, the very basis of Steve’s hard-won sanity. It was wrong to tempt God, but it was wronger by far to fail to rise to life’s challenges. It was wrong to cower from the truth, but it was wronger by far to live in contradiction to known truths. Steve had challenged his audience at Reedville to a life of self-giving love in all circumstances as the only hope for the world and the only source of lasting happiness for anyone, especially for the affluent like themselves. This was his chance to live up to his own challenge. Self-giving love! He was looking it straight in the face.
Ruthlessly, as was his manner, he drove himself to the only possible decision. The signs of his inner struggle united Kay’s heart with his in these moments of eloquent silence.
At last he tightened his embrace of her and said, “Thank you, my love. We are in the hands of greater forces than ourselves. What else can we do but give our baby a chance to live? I shall have to be braver than you.”
In the morning he called Dr. Pederson’s office and canceled their appointment for the following week.
The trial had begun.
XXI
The die was cast. Steve was now decidedly involved in a personal way in the implications of his Reedville address. And the more he thought about it, the more he saw it Kay’s way. It was indeed the only way, he concluded.
In his own mind he was very clear about certain features of human nature. He had no doubt that as long as the human race survived, there would always be those dedicated to expanding the horizons of knowledge and gaining ever greater mastery over the forces of nature. No human life on earth would be unaffected by this. He was also convinced now beyond a shadow of a doubt that this would have a deadly effect on people as a whole unless love took over from Sin as the dominant force in the human soul, unless Cecilia’s Jesus could do for the whole human race what He had done for her. Only then would man’s innate bent toward self-gratification as a way of life be superseded by a divinely inspired thirst for the well-being of others. This passionate thirst was as needed for survival on the national and international levels as it was on the level of each individual person, and it represented the precise reversal of what was commonly understood as the process of evolution, the survival of the fittest. Somehow, people’s loyalties had to be raised above the levels of chauvinism, blind patriotism, and all the many seductive forms of hedonism, raised to the level of a passionate concern for the well-being of others. If all we care about is our own personal well-being, we are on the road to disaster as a race. The chain of the survival of the fittest had to be shattered link by link through the victory of love, or else no one would survive. We would end up destroying ourselves as we destroy others. The strongest would annihilate one another and the weakest would be their helpless victims. Without love, scientists would continue to operate in oblivious isolation and people everywhere would suffer as a result. Love, and love alone, was the key to humanity’s future. Without love, and all the risks it entails, humanity had no future.
For Steve, Jesus had said it all in enjoining us to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and to “love one another as I have loved you.” Our failure to take Him at His word in the past had had catastrophic results at every level. Failure to take Him at His word now in this new age of science would lead inevitably to our annihilation. What was once prudent advice had now become humanity’s recipe for survival.
But no one can be forced to love, he realized. We must be taught to love, inspired to love, reformed to love. We must be enveloped by love until it becomes our nature. This can come only through a spiritually transforming encounter with God who is Love, an encounter most often facilitated by people who have already been transformed by their encounter with Him, people like Cecilia and Kay.
The irony is this: the Cecilias and the Kays are the most authentic people in the world, the most honest, least devious, most fully alive, and most happy people in the world. What or who is preventing everyone else from making it their life’s goal to be like them? What or who is blinding people from embracing what so clearly serves in their own best interests? Can it really be that “an enemy has done this,” as Jesus said? What did He mean by that?
It encouraged Steve to see evidences of love operating here and there throughout the world in people who still believed that “it is more blessed to give than to receive,” even though sometimes these evidences appeared in less than perfect expressions—like the teacher devoted to cramming a cherished principle down the throat of a student who has no possible use for it, or a nation urging self-sacrifice on its citizens for its own sake with no concern for the well-being of anyone beyond their borders. But the impulse for goodness was almost always detectible in many places and guises, however imperfect, and Dr. Pearson was quick to take note of it with a sense of relief.
During the months of Kay’s pregnancy, Steve frequently spoke of these things with her. The conversation of a typical evening ran something like this:
“How did you feel today at school, sweetheart?”
Steve had been using more terms of endearment lately.
“Quite well. Dr. Pederson has cut my dosage of insulin down to forty-five percent of normal. And recently I’ve had more candy than in the rest of my life all put together. Life is pretty good.”
“Well, just so we keep everything in balance. I think I like you a little plumper, anyhow.”
“That’s not me, Funny Face. That’s our Little One.”
Then they would just sit there in silence and stare at each other, soaking it all in.
“We’ve got to take really good care of him or her, Kay. If it’s a girl, I hope she’ll be just like you. If it’s a boy, we’ll do our best to help him to be a better man than I am. You
have always blessed our home with kindness and love, and that will give our little one such a good start in life, a good basis for being generous and loving toward others, a good attitude toward others and just the right heart to communicate that attitude to them, especially if they are very broken. Just like you, it will come naturally to our child to be like the man Jesus told us about this morning in our devotions who gave the thief his cloak after he had already stolen his coat and who carried the soldier’s backpack two miles when he could have quit after one.”
“O my darling, that’s you, not me!”
“No, it’s you. It’s only thanks to you that I bounced back from despair and found a reason to live again.”
Steve was speaking in low ardent tones.
“The very night I was forced to despair of man’s ability to see beyond himself and to love others, that’s when we, you and I, brought together the elements of this work of love who is in your womb. Not progress, nor culture, nor solving problems, nor unraveling mysteries is the Cause of God on this earth, Kay, but simply love without which all of these other endeavors will lead only to disaster. But with love, all of them can be purified and sanctified and turned into something good. Love requires us always to take into account the full effects of everything we do on the basic well-being of people. ‘God is love,’ the apostle tells us, and he should know. That means that love is divine, and this gives us a firm basis for hope. Jesus’ resurrection means something after all. It means that life on earth at its darkest does not have the final word. The little ones who live by faith in Him and are filled with God’s love have the final word. You and Cecilia have it. And the precious little bundle in your womb will have it too, please God!”
“Yes, Steve. He will. God is at work so that through our child He may bring peace on earth, goodwill to men.”
Steve closed his eyes and rubbed them with his fingers. His pipe had gone out while he was talking.
“It is all so clear. Love is the only force that can work this miracle for the human race…. And God is totally Love. Let Him use us and our little one as He will as instruments of His love.”
“He will, Steve. We are giving Him what we can, and He is accepting it. I feel His strength in me. I really do. And I hear Him saying to us, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.’”
“O my dear Lord!” Steve sighed. “How I long to be a true peacemaker, a true son of God!”
XXII
The night of June 29, 1959, was unseasonably warm in Minneapolis. Without a breeze to freshen it, the sultry air of the day was now smothering the city in its heavy blanket. The air conditioning fans in the general hospital were laboring to relieve suffering patients of the added burden of the heat. A faint light was glowing in a window on the seventh floor, one of the few still burning at 2:00 a.m. The seventh floor was the maternity ward.
An infant son had been born the previous morning to Dr. and Mrs. Stephan Pearson. The baby, whose delivery was complicated by its greatly enlarged pancreas and by other congenital issues, died before they could get him onto the operating table. A nurse had quickly baptized him as “Baby Boy Pearson, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” just before he expired.
The mother’s condition was so critical that the news of her infant son’s death had been withheld from her. She had, in fact, regained consciousness only twice.
Dr. Pearson, though prepared for an ordeal by the unexpected complications of his wife’s last month of pregnancy, was in a state of shock. Mary Thorsheim had remained with him all day and into the night and had heard from his lips little more than the words, “She has to pull through! O God! She has to pull through!”
At 2:05 a.m., the physician who had attended her all through her labor and delivery stepped into the waiting room. Steve shot to his side. “She has regained consciousness, Dr. Pearson,” he said wearily, “and is asking for you. Mind you, only a minute or two.”
Dreading and hoping, Steve opened the door and tiptoed into the room. Above the white curtain drawn around Kay’s bed hung two inverted bottles of blood and a series of tubes. Quickly he moved to the side of the bed where the curtain was open. An oxygen tent had been removed from around Kay’s head. Their eyes met. A weak smile broke out on her face at the sight of Steve. He laid his hand on hers, gazing in disbelief through the paraphernalia surrounding her.
Her breathing was faint and fitful. But her eyes gleamed with joy. She looked steadily at her wretched husband. Her lips parted a slit and closed again. Steve bent low over her, so low that his ear was almost touching her mouth. Her breathing grew even more rapid and fluttering. Her lips parted again and, in the barest whisper, scarcely audible, but clear as crystal, Steve heard, “It’s a boy. Are you happy, my love?”
Her breathing grew even more shallow, as if her soul were barely clinging to her body.
“Oh yes, my beloved!” Steve choked. “My dearly beloved Kay!”
Tears were streaming down his cheeks. He was trembling uncontrollably.
“Then don’t cry, darling…. I’ll be all right….”
Her voice died to a whirr.
“I am … very happy … too…. Jesus just….”
Her eyes closed. One of the attendants firmly pulled Steve back and with one motion, drew the oxygen tent down over her head again. Petrified, Stephan Pearson watched the flower of his life wither away before his eyes.
A few long moments later, Kay opened her eyes for the last time and looked straight into Steve’s eyes. A deep smile settled over her face, a smile expressing all the joys of a battle well fought and won. When she closed her eyes, the smile remained.
They tried to get Stephan to leave, but he insisted on remaining at her bedside, holding her hand. Mary joined him in his vigil.
The gentle smile was still on her face at 2:38 a.m. when Katherine Pearson took her last breath.
Book Three B
XXIII
The funeral for Katherine Pearson and Baby Boy Pearson took place at Grace Lutheran Church in St. Mark. Their bodies were laid to rest in the church cemetery on the east end of town, a short walk from the Pearson home. It was attended by a large congregation of mourning friends and colleagues. Neither Steve nor Kay had any immediate family members, no siblings, no parents, no cousins, to offer Steve personal support. Mary Thorsheim, sizing up the situation, decided to be his sister. And my wife and I, entering the church a few minutes before the Processional Hymn, became at her invitation the rest of his family. We followed the caskets down the aisle to their place at the foot of the altar and sat with Steve and Mary in the front pew on the left. The pallbearers, drawn from the faculty and administration of the college, followed us and occupied the first pew on the right.
The Lutheran funeral liturgy was conducted by the pastor with great reverence and restraint. To the surprise of all, he announced that instead of a sermon he was acceding gladly to the request of Dr. Pearson to celebrate Holy Communion so that Jesus might be directly present to all with a minimum of human intervention. My wife and I experienced this as a touch of pure grace. The first communicant kneeling at the altar railing to receive Jesus was Stephan. Mary and I needed to help him back to the pew.
After the lowering of the caskets at the interment in the cemetery, Dr. Pearson graciously accepted the condolences of all who approached him at graveside. He had decided against a reception. As the crowd melted away, he turned to my wife and me and said, with a depth of emotion that almost got away on him, “Her last words to me were, ‘I am … very happy … too…. Jesus just….’”
He choked up. Nothing more was said.
My wife and I choked up too.
With that, he took a deep breath and shuffled slowly over to his DeSoto. He drove the short distance to his home where, for all intents and purposes, he shut himself in for the rest of the summer. For the next two weeks, of course, he had a steady stream of visitors, including us, but after that his only consistent visitor was Mary Thorsh
eim who had promised Kay to “keep track of him in case something should happen to me.” She felt it was only right for her to share this promise with Steve whose response was, “I guess we can’t let her down then, can we?” And so for Kay’s sake he welcomed Mary into his home twice a week so that she could “keep track of him” and do whatever cleaning up she could.
What did Steve do during those many hours and days alone in his house that summer? No one really knows. He let their lilac hedge grow wild all summer, he let most of the garden overgrow, and he let the lawn go to seed. He was seen now and then by passers-by on the front porch in a rocking chair, pipe in hand. Some days the shades on the windows of the house remained drawn all day. Mary sometimes found him, when she came on her regular visits, sitting in the living room in the semidarkness in a kind of daze. He seemed largely oblivious to dawn and dusk, to growth and decay in the world around him, perhaps because in his soul that summer there was neither dawn nor dusk, neither growth nor decay. There was just numbness.
When he happened to remember that it was Sunday, he would show up in church. When he didn’t, his diligent pastor would pay him a visit, bringing him Holy Communion. Once Mary happened to be there when the pastor came, and they received Jesus together.
“Thank you, Pastor,” Steve said. “Thank you for appreciating that I need time.”
“Of course you need time, Dr. Pearson. When the time is right, God will speak to you as He knows best. Everything is in His hands.”
“I really want to believe that, Pastor.”
So existence dragged on for Steve, now feeling doubly forsaken. He was living in a vacuum. He lost all interest in the things that had once fully engaged him. They were all bloodless ghosts to him now. Nothing mattered anymore. Science? Dead! Learning? What for? Probing into the unknown? Who cares? Grief smothered his brain and all but gutted his will to live.
A Grain of Wheat Page 37