Chapter Nine: The Cost

COUNTING THE COST

The medical bills are insurmountable! No sense worrying about them!

There are far more important things that the careless act of a thoughtless driver has cost Ron, such as

Bonnie’s B+ on a math test, a subject she struggles with

Allen’s new moves on his skateboard

The way our new kitten presses his nose against mine in the morning

Family Monopoly Night

Our daughter in her new Easter hat

The daffodils blooming in the backyard

Lighting candles the night the power goes out

Sunday comics spread over the living room rug

Dennis’ new hair cut

Watching the sunset from the back deck

Allen standing up to Mike—finally!

Pizza on Tuesdays and Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Doing the dishes and blowing soap bubbles

Life is made up of countless insignificant moments that will never come again.

For countless days, in countless ways, Ron has missed them.

They are gone forever.

 

CHAPTER NINE

MAY 12, 2000. 3 PM.

            My friend’s husband is going on a pilgrimage to Chakra, where he intends to walk the labyrinth. Before he leaves, he asks people to write down the burdens that are carrying onto slips of paper. He collects them all solemnly, puts them in his backpack, and promises he will stop at each turn of the labyrinth to pray for those whose burdens he now carries with him.

            A lot of the burdens he carries are mine.

            Ron is still in the hospital, back in intensive care as be fights off the latest infection. Each day brings new tubes and new problems. Seeing him is painful and I am beginning to wonder how one human being can ever recover from so much physical damage. I am worn out and tired, dragging myself through each day. It has occurred to me that these burdens may be mine to carry for a long, long time. Bonnie is having a difficult semester at school, her mind always on her father. Some of Allen’s old fears have returned and he sees “bad guys and monsters” in the shadows.

            So I wrote all of these things down and put them in Denis’ back pack.

            Denis will be at Chakra for six days. And during those six days, whenever I am tempted to fret about the course of events that have overtaken our lives, I will remind myself that Denis now carries my burdens around the labyrinth. Someone else is doing the fretting and the praying and the worrying. I can cast my cars upon Denis for these six days and in the maelstrom that has become my existence, I can find a place of calm.

            I think of the symbolism here. Just as Denis carries my burdens to Chakra, Jesus bore my sins to the cross. But His promise goes far beyond that. Jesus wants to carry our burdens every day. Even now, when my weariness is overwhelming, Jesus wants my burdens. So why do I fret and worry?

            Because I am human. God knows this about me. Jesus warned his disciples in Luke 21:34 that they “take heed to yourselves, lest at anytime you be overcharged with…the cares of this life.” Just as I so easily added my slips of paper to Denis’ pack, so I should easily give them over to the Savior.

            Yet I seem to hold onto them, unable to let go.

MAY 25, 2000. 1 PM.

            I can hear the sounds of my students on the playground, shouting in the clear spring sunshine. Winter has finally given way to some crisp, clear days. I lean my head against the cool metal frame of the stall in the Ladies’ Room, seeking some comfort for my aching right eye. Two days ago I was forced to admit that the pain—manageable with ibuprofen for the last week—was out of control. My ophthalmologist berated me for waiting so long to come in and I did not explain that I have been living inside the walls of a hospital for three months. Three of the remaining ten sutures in my eye had come lose and needed to be removed. What a blessed, twenty-four hour release from the throbbing pain when Dr. Morris anesthetized the eye to remove the stitches! But the ache was back now, complicated by the infection I had inadvertently caused by waiting too long. I avoid light whenever I can and keep my classroom in semi-darkness.

            I am reluctant to leave the peaceful quiet of the restroom, but the bell will ring soon to signal the end of recess. A stack of books sits on my desk and taunts me; I have a final next week. My professor has offered me the opportunity to take an incomplete for this semester and finish over the summer, but I cannot even imagine what challenges the next season may hold. So I plow ahead, determined to finish what I began before the world collapsed around me. I have opted out of the summer term. I simply have no energy left.

            Talk in class last night turned to stress. Are teachers more prone to stress than other professionals? And I sat behind my dark glasses, my right eye throbbing, wondering if anyone in the room could possibly comprehend the amount of stress in my life. Yet I try to remain calm, putting one foot in front of the other and moving on.

            We are all moving on. Bonnie has finished her first year at Delaware County Community College and while it has been an exceedingly difficult year, she has scraped by. About a month ago it looked as if she would not make it so—against her wishes—I called her professors and told them what had been going on in her life. They were all sympathetic and gave her chances to make up work she had missed during long night hospital vigils. She was seeing a young man from work for a while, but that fizzled out in April. She seems none the worse for it. I admit I hardly noticed the changes in her social status, so erratic are my own hours these days.

            And Allen is once again the man of the house. In church on Sunday, the pastor asked us to join hands in prayer and when mine was gripped by a firm, strong grasp to my right, I almost gasped. Was this the hand of my youngest son? It felt like a man’s hand, certain and sure. I found my own hand enveloped in that of a fourteen year old. I was not totally unaware of the changes that time has wrought upon this child. He is eye-level with me now and certain mannerisms reflect his father and his brother. The way he reaches for his wallet, squares his shoulders, answers the phone with a masculine, “Hello.” These are reminders to me that my youngest child is striving towards adulthood. As the long, strong fingers closed over mine and applied pressure to my palm, I recalled the small hand that held mine on his first day of school. Then, he was the one to cling to me.

            Mommy, don’t let go.

            Sometimes, now, I find myself clinging onto him and I remind myself that I cannot completely fill the void left by their father. My children have their own lives to lead. But the longer Ron remains hospitalized, the more accustomed I become to our family unit numbering three. When I think of the future, making sketchy plans as to where we might be in a year or so, I see Bonnie and Allen and me. Ron is added as a hasty afterthought.

            I hear the recess bell ring. Time to leave my sanctuary. I check myself in the mirror to see if I can in any way resemble a sane person for the rest of the afternoon. I am emerging from the Ladies’, on my way back to my own classroom, when I see the principal walking down the hall towards me, carrying a pink phone message slip. There are tears in Phyllis’ eyes.

            A cold hand grips my heart. I collapse against the wall. Can I pretend not to see her? If I just on into English class, won’t it all just go away?

            But Phyllis grabs my arm before I can reach my own classroom. “I’ll cover for you,” she says. “You need to go.”

            I wonder what organ has broken now, what complication has set in that the doctors had not foreseen. I wonder, nonsensically, if there will be any supper tonight. Then I notice that, despite the tears, Phyllis is smiling.

            She offers me the pink message slip and I glance at Dr. Huffman’s name scrawled across the bottom. Phyllis puts her arms around me. “He’s coming home,” she says. “They’re releasing him now. He’s finally coming home.”