Chapter 5 - 1976
“If you won’t let me in as her friend, then let me in as
her pastor.” That couldn’t have been Mister’s voice I heard - dad told me a
long time ago, in a fit of rage, that I wouldn’t be seeing Mister again,
accusing me of being ‘too attached’.
After Lisa was gone, and I was prevented from seeing the Beals, life
melted into days, weeks and months of gray -
an endless procession of time I wouldn’t be able to recall for the
lackluster quality of it all, until about three weeks earlier, when I began
getting very bad pains in my stomach.
I
was sick for two days until one evening when Dad came home early from work,
called a friend and drove me straight to the hospital. In and out of consciousness, I had no
recollection of how I got from the emergency department to my present bed in a
room with a scary lady who had her jaw wired shut from a bad car accident, but
I heard Dad telling anyone and everyone that I would have died of a ruptured
appendix if he had not come home early that night.
Maum had stayed
home with me one day, but threw her hands up in the air, complaining that I
wouldn’t eat the soup she brought to me, shut my bedroom door, and didn’t check
on me again. She didn’t come to the
hospital to visit me, either, but that was just fine as far as I was concerned,
because Dad was blaming her for neglect and I felt sorry and a little fearful
for causing her so much trouble with him.
Now, my mind must have been playing tricks on me. I strained my ears, listening, hoping,
praying I would hear Mister’s voice and see him walk into my room. Nothing.
Five minutes, or was it an hour, passed with no more indication that he
was in the hospital. Feverish from a
second infection, my heart was crushed, and I was hotly angry with myself for
getting my own hopes up. My eyes
fluttered and I began to nod off...
A warm, calloused hand lightly brushed my cheek. Parting my eyes, I saw him standing next to
me, his fedora pinched between his
finger and thumb in the other hand.
Tidal waves of relief, love, happiness and joy crashed over my soul, and
I weakly said, “Hi”, as though it hadn’t seemed like a lifetime since I had
been ripped away from him. A nurse
nervously flitted around the room muttering that my dad had specifically
prohibited visitors unless he gave prior approval.
“We’ve been thinking about you and pray for you every
single day, Elizabeth. How are you
feeling?” Mister crouched down to my level, and I found myself lost in his
kind, concerned eyes.
“I’m ok, but I’ve been here for a long time and I get
shots three times a day in my legs, see?” I moved just enough blanket to
uncover a spot on my thigh that was filled with pinholes. I didn’t tell Mister that they ran out of
room on my backside, which was why they had to find other places to give me
antibiotic shots for the peritonitis that still raged in my system.
We talked about anything and everything and my weary, raw
heart beat a little easier for the first time in a long time. I watched his face, drank in his smile, and bowed
my head in reverent thankfulness as he prayed over me.
“Remember, Elizabeth, the Heavenly Father loves you and
He has a plan for your life. There is
nothing too hard for Him. Jesus said,
‘Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world‘, and even if we don‘t
see each other as much as we‘d like to, no one can keep you from Him.”
“Am I interrupting something, here?” Dad marched into the
room and stood on the other side of my bed. “How are you, Earl?”
“I’m here visiting Elizabeth as her clergy today. I heard from a friend that she has been here
for a few weeks.” Mister was polite, but he stood tall and confident.
Dad gently smoothed the hair back from my feverish brow,
and I peeked out the window, my head feeling strange and uncomfortable at his touch. “Elizabeth
needs her rest, and I want what’s best for her, so it’s time you should go.”
Mister brushed his hand across my arm, sending comforting
warmth through me. “Remember, we love
you and are praying for you.” Stepping past my father, he smiled back at me,
positioned the fedora slightly askew on his head, and was gone.
No comments:
Post a Comment