Claude’s cousin started to cry. She told the woman the story of Hannah and the quilt she was wanting to give her. Then the woman started to cry, too. The story was so extraordinary that Claude’s cousin had gone home and recorded the details of it onto the tape she had included with the quilt in the box, “just in case, when you tell the story, people don’t believe you.”
Holding the tape in my hand, I realized I didn’t have to prove anything to myself or anyone else. Suddenly I understood the reading I had heard so often in church: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The quilt’s presence at the foot of Hannah’s bed was enough evidence for me.
Mother’s Day
HANNAH WAS STANDING NEXT TO THE OAK TABLE IN OUR front hall, holding a plate of Noah’s Ark cookies. Someone had left a box of them, still warm from the oven, on our porch the day before. They were sugar cookies, perfect for us to bring to the preschool Mother’s Day Tea. I was holding a camcorder, capturing the moment on video. The camera, like my journal, had been documenting the past year of Hannah’s life in fits and starts. Hannah’s diagnosis and subsequent relapses had prompted flurries of photo ops and journal entries that were then followed by long, dormant periods when, lulled by the apathy of routine, I would begin to feel that there would always be more time. I knew differently now.
Hannah set the plate on the table and wiped her hands on the front of her dress.
“How do I look, Mommy?” she asked.
“You look beautiful, Missy,” I said.
Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes bright. She had been spending so much time outside that the May sun had already tanned her skin. These days, people who didn’t know us were complimenting Hannah on her “haircut.” It was still very short, but it had grown in enough to lie flat on her head, like Tinkerbell’s in Disney’s Peter Pan. Her dress, printed with tiny purple violets, had an Empire waist, a large lace collar, and a matching headband. She smiled at the camera and patted the bow of the headband.
“See my hair and my hair bow,” she said, “and my dress,” she continued, smoothing the front of it, “and my tights and my red shoes,” she said, holding one leg out, like a ballerina, for the camera to see. She let her arms hang at her sides for a moment and stared silently into the camera. Then she reached for the cookies.
“Come on, Mommy, we can’t be late for the tea.”
I turned off the camera and kneeled down to arrange it properly in its case. Hannah came over and stood next to me, draping her arm around my neck.
“You look beautiful, too, Mommy,” she said.
“Thank you, Missy,” I said, giving her a hug.
Earlier that morning, as I stood in my closet wondering what to wear, I had realized that this might be one of the last things I would do publicly as Hannah’s mother. I thought of all the ceremonies and graduations that I would never attend, when Hannah’s name would never be called. I decided to make the most of this opportunity. While Hannah sat on the edge of my bed, I slipped the most beautiful maternity dress I owned over my head. It was made of ivory and peach silk. I carefully applied my makeup, dotted my wrists with perfume, and placed a light pink hat with a wide, floppy brim on my head. Hannah clapped her hands together and gasped.
“Mommy, that’s perfect,” she whispered.
I heard Claude coming up the steps, two at a time, already late for work. He peeked in the door.
“Just wanted to give my girls a kiss before I leave,” he said. Then, noticing our finery, he smiled and let out a whistle.
Hannah squealed and jumped to the floor.
“Before you go, check how tall I am today, Daddy,” she said, standing as straight as she could, lifting her chin toward the ceiling.
Claude laughed and stood behind her, drawing the flat of his hand across the top of her head to a spot just above the buckle of his belt.
“Whoa, Missy,” he exclaimed, as she turned to see. “You’re taller than my belt buckle today.”
Hannah giggled and danced in front of him. It didn’t seem to matter to either of them that they had repeated the same routine every day for weeks. It was almost as if Hannah sensed Claude’s fierce resistance to thinking about her death. Their time together was about being silly and having fun.
Hannah was giggling now as Claude scooped her up.
“I love you, Missy,” he said softly.
“I love you, too, Daddy,” she said.
Holding Hannah’s hand as we walked to school, I felt so blessed to be her mom. How would I ever be able to let her go? In spite of my initial skepticism at the healing service and the certainty in my heart that Hannah was going to die, I couldn’t help hoping for a miracle. Hope, I realized now, was the irrepressible substance of faith. It welled up naturally in response to fear and uncertainty, returning again and again, like a living thing.
Waiting to Exhale
HANNAH WAS SKIPPING IN CIRCLES AROUND THE KITCHEN while I prepared dinner. The window above the sink was open to the early June breeze. The clanging lid on the soup pot and the steaming smells suggested all was well.
I was beginning to think the doctors were wrong. Hannah didn’t look sick. She hadn’t so much as sneezed in weeks. Her hair, which last month had lain flat on her head, had grown at least an inch longer and now had a personality of its own; Claude called it “woolly mammoth” hair because it stuck up and out all over. She was eating well, gaining weight, and getting taller; the hem of her “robe j’s” swung freely at her ankles now. She had even participated in her preschool Olympics a few days earlier, the only competitor to run in red patent leather shoes.
For the first time in months, I had regained a sense of privacy in my life. Although I felt grateful for everyone’s help while Hannah was sick, I had sometimes felt as if my whole life was being lived in a storefront window. Friends and family had cleaned my house, rearranged my cupboards, and washed my dirty underwear. During Hannah’s bone marrow transplant, not wanting to leave her alone, Claude and I had made love standing up in the tiny bathroom connected to Hannah’s hospital room.
One of the ways I had found to maintain a sense of myself was to withhold the extent of my pain from others. It had been one of my guiltiest pleasures to tell people that I was “fine” even when I wasn’t. Although I knew it wasn’t the truth, it kept me from feeling like a gigantic wound that wouldn’t stop hemorrhaging. It was much easier to say, and people looked so relieved when I did. Lately, I had been saying the same thing, except that now I was beginning to believe it.
I stirred the soup. Suddenly Hannah stopped skipping and doubled over. She coughed once, twice, three times, then stood up and cleared her throat. I rested the spoon on the edge of the stove, my brow creased with suspicion. A car honked. A dog barked. Hannah’s sequined tutu sparkled in the late afternoon sun. Lifting a clenched fist to her mouth, she cleared her throat once more.
“It’s okay, Mommy,” she said finally. “I just have a cough that won’t come out.”
Her red shoes clicked across the linoleum. I bent down and gathered her up. She felt solid and strong in my arms. I inhaled her sweetness, cherry lollipops and baby shampoo, and lost myself in her embrace. The soup? It boiled over.
Grandma’s Promise
MY MOTHER AND HANNAH WERE SITTING ON THE FLOOR OF Hannah’s room. The Barbie doll box was tipped upside down, spilling dolls, clothes, and tiny pastel shoes across the rug. The two of them were dressing the Barbies for an outing to the Barbie mall that Hannah had arranged in a corner by the door. Hannah was still wearing her bathing suit. We had spent the afternoon at the pool, watching Will, Grandpa, and Uncle Ben cannonball and belly-flop off the diving boards.
Ever since Will was a year old, he had spent the first week of July at the Cherry Festival in Traverse City, Michigan, with my parents. He had begged to be allowed to go again this year. I had no doubt that it would be good for him. Claude and I were doing our best to give him love and attention, but we couldn’t deny the fact that ou
r focus was mostly on Hannah. Her health seemed to be degenerating slowly but steadily. Each day she tired more quickly and coughed more frequently. I was tired, too. My body was full and heavy with the baby that was due any day. While Hannah and I were content to sleep and snuggle, Will was understandably restless.
I had struggled with the decision. I didn’t want Will to miss the birth of our baby, and I definitely wanted him to be with us for Hannah’s death. Since the doctors couldn’t tell us exactly when either of these things was going to happen, I had to trust my intuition. Claude and I took a leap of faith and enlisted both sets of grandparents to help. My parents and brother Ben had agreed to drive from Michigan to New Jersey to pick Will up, and Claude’s parents had agreed to bring him back ten days later.
Hannah set her doll on the floor in front of her and looked at my mother.
“Will you promise me something, Grandma?” Hannah asked.
“Sure, Hannah,” my mother said, focusing on the half-dressed Barbie on her knee.
“No, Grandma. I want you to promise me something,” Hannah said quietly.
My mother looked up. Hannah’s eyes were on her, intent, serious.
“Yes, Hannah,” she said. “Anything.”
Hannah was silent. My mother waited.
“Grandma,” Hannah said finally, “I want you to promise that you’ll never forget me.”
My mother’s eyes filled with tears. Hannah’s were dry, resting on her grandmother, waiting for her reply.
“I promise, Hannah. I will never forget,” my mother finally said.
Circle of Life
I AWOKE JUST BEFORE DAWN WITH LABOR PAINS, KNOWING that today was the day. I called Nurse Katie, who had offered to stay with Hannah while Claude and I went to the hospital. There was no point in calling Will. He and his grandparents were already on the road, headed back to us. They were not scheduled to arrive in New Jersey until the following day.
The streets were quiet in the first light. While Claude loaded the car, I wrote out the instructions for Hannah’s medication. Four days earlier, Dr. Kamalaker had started her on Tylenol with codeine, but despite the fact that she was taking it every four hours, Hannah could barely walk, she was in so much pain. Yesterday, we had called Pat, Hannah’s hospice nurse. She was scheduled to come to our house this evening to instruct us on how to give Hannah morphine. I now had my fingers crossed that this baby would be born quickly, and we would be home by then.
Hannah woke just as Katie arrived. I gave her a kiss as she crawled onto Katie’s lap.
“Call me as soon as the baby comes,” Hannah said.
After five breathtaking hours of labor, Margaret Rose slid, wet and wailing, into the world. She was beautiful, almost eight pounds, with lots of hair, sturdy legs, chubby cheeks, and perfect rosebud lips. Claude wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve and couldn’t stop smiling. As I held my littlest girl, her slippery skin against mine, for one long, perfect moment I wanted nothing more.
While the nurses wiped and wrapped Margaret, Claude called Hannah.
“Congratulations, Hannah. You’re a big sister now,” Claude said. “Our baby’s name is Margaret Rose.”
“Oh, goody,” Hannah said. “A girl, just like Briar Rose. Okay, tell Margaret that me and Nurse Katie will be there right away.”
“No, Hannah,” Claude interrupted, “you don’t need to come. The doctors have said that Mom and Margaret are well enough to come home today. You and Katie can wait there. We’ll be home as soon as we can.”
An hour later, standing in the hospital nursery watching the nurses bathe and weigh Margaret, Claude heard someone banging wildly on the window. He looked up to see Hannah in Katie’s arms, grinning and waving, wearing a huge button that read “I’m a Big Sister.”
“I tried to tell her she didn’t have to come, but she insisted,” Katie said. “Hannah told me that, because she and Will had gone to the ‘Big Brother/Big Sister’ class, she knew that one of the most important jobs a big sister has is to visit the new baby at the hospital.”
“What about her pain?” Claude asked.
“She told me ‘bring the pills just in case,’” Katie said.
“Oh, one more thing,” Katie said. “You didn’t mention it, so I don’t know if you knew, but Will and his grandparents called. They left Michigan a day sooner than they had originally planned. They’ll be at your house this afternoon.”
While I waited for our release to be processed, Claude headed home to meet Will and his parents. Hannah asked to stay. She took a dose of pain medication and fell asleep on the bed with Margaret and me.
Holding my girls, I couldn’t believe how lucky I was. I knew there were so many other ways things might have happened, and I hadn’t been alone in my worry. When I had first shared the news of our pregnancy, some people’s eyes glazed over. There is no polite way to say, “You’re crazy. What were you thinking?”
When the doctors gave Hannah only three months to live, it hadn’t taken me more than a second to calculate that this baby was going to be born just when Hannah was expected to die. It had seemed an impossible situation. Yet, the decision Claude and I had made to get pregnant hadn’t been made in our minds; it had been made in our hearts. I could only trust that the God who had a hand in all of it would be there to see us through, one way or another.
Now, listening to the breath of my little girl on one side and my baby girl on the other, I knew that only the most awesome grace could have arranged this day: both my girls in the same world, and Will coming home.
Metamorphosis
I WAS SITTING IN A ROCKING CHAIR IN OUR BEDROOM, nursing Margaret, who was a week old. Will was sitting on the floor, staring out the window. A picture book about dinosaurs lay open at his feet. Hannah was on the bed, lying in a half-seated position against a pile of pillows, covered by her pink blanket. Her eyes were closed, but I didn’t think she was asleep.
Several days before, she had announced, “I hurt too much. I want to sleep in the bed that smells like you and Daddy.”
Her tumor was growing rapidly now, large enough to press against her ribs and spinal cord. Although a constant dose of morphine was being pumped into her body, twenty-four hours a day, Hannah could no longer walk; she had to be carried. Other than asking to go to the toilet, she seemed content to stay where she was.
I felt frustrated that there wasn’t more I could do to help Hannah, and longed for information about how to prepare her and us for her death. Pat had given me what she could, but the hospice she worked for rarely dealt with dying children; none of the hospices in our area did. It seemed almost inconceivable to me that there had been shelves of books, videos, and even classes at the hospital to prepare Hannah for Margaret’s birth. Where were the experts now, when I needed to prepare her for her death?
I had done my best to anticipate what Hannah might need. The antique rocking chair was a testament to that. It had always been Hannah’s favorite spot to snuggle and read. I had asked Claude to bring it upstairs, imagining it would be the perfect place for us to spend her final days. I was wrong. “It hurts too much,” she said. My image of us rocking peacefully into her death was simply one more thing I had to let go of.
Will looked up.
“Mom, how long does it take a body to become a skeleton?”
Hannah heard Will’s question. Her eyes popped open. These days, death was one of her favorite subjects.
You’ve got to be kidding, I thought. I was all for telling the truth and facing fears; but I wasn’t ready for this conversation.
“I’m not sure, Will,” I said, feeling that I didn’t want to know, either.
He screwed up his lips and creased his brow, as if he were contemplating probable rates of decomposition. Hannah had her own ideas.
“You know,” she said, her eyes bright with mischief, “they can bury your body, but they can’t bury your spirit!”
She was grinning. Will looked at her and grinned, too.
“That’s g
reat, Hannah,” he said. He turned to me.
“What do you think, Mom? Do our spirits go to heaven even though our bodies are buried?”
I had been waiting for this question for a while. I had even wondered if I should bring it up myself. I loved that the two of them had done it on their own.
“Well,” I began, my thoughts tripping seven sentences ahead of my words, “I believe that when the body is too sick or too old to live anymore, it dies, and then the soul is free.”
“What happens to the soul after the body dies, Mom?” Will asked.
“I’m not really sure,” I admitted. “Some people believe that souls go to heaven after the body dies. I think I believe that, too.”
“Me, too,” said Hannah.
Will wanted to know more. “I know the Bible says that, but does anybody else?” he asked.
“Well,” I answered, “I’ve been reading books about something called a ‘near-death experience.’ Sometimes people die for a few minutes, like in very serious surgeries or car accidents, but then doctors manage to bring them back to life. When this happens, those people describe death as a long tunnel with a bright light at the other end that draws them into a place of beautiful love. Not everyone believes that’s what happens. I guess we can’t be sure until we do it ourselves.”
I continued. “You know how a butterfly grows inside the cocoon until it’s ready to fly? Or the way a hermit crab lives in a shell until it gets too small for his growing body and then moves to another? I like to think death is something like that.”
“I’m going to be a butterfly,” Hannah stated, and with that settled, rolled back onto the pillows and shut her eyes.
On the Threshold
Hannah's Gift Page 8
