Diamond nodded.
"Well, this is just part of the sickness. It makes her so tired that she has to sleep. But while she's sleeping, she's not in any pain. And that's good news, right?"
"Right," Diamond said and then jumped off Deidre's lap and danced back over to her brother and sister to draw some more Christmas pictures to tape to Kenisha's walls.
That's when Deidre thought about how she could bribe Kenisha to stay with them a little longer. She went over to the table and sat down with the kids and asked, "Hey, how would you guys like to bring the Christmas tree here?"
"What about the presents?" Jamal asked.
"Yes, of course, we'll bring the presents also. We can go to church on Christmas Eve, and then come here and spend the night. When we wake up on Christmas morning, you'll be able to open your presents with your mom. How about it?"
Diamond and Jamal jumped out of their seats and yelled, "Yes!"
A second later, Kennedy jumped up and mimicked her brother and sister, "Yes!"
Deidre walked back over to Kenisha's bed and whispered in her ear, "Did you hear that, Kenisha? We're going to spend Christmas with you. And I know you don't like to disappoint your kids, so you have to stay with us another week."
They put the tree up in her room, brought the presents, and then Deidre told her that she couldn't die until she had celebrated Christmas with her family. A tall order, since she was so weak all she could think about was closing her eyes and never opening them again. But her kids expected her to watch them open their presents on Christmas morning. So Kenisha was in a bargaining mood. She turned her face heavenward and did something she hadn't done in a long time—prayed."I haven't talked to you in a long time. As I grew up, I started to think of You as this big, important being in the sky who didn't care what happened to the little people on earth. But Deidre keeps telling me that you do care. So I'm going to try You one last time. I'm not even going to ask You for my life, I know I'm dying . . . I can feel death closing in on me. But if you allow me to live to celebrate Christmas with my children, then I will give my life to You."
Kenisha knew that she wasn't really offering God a whole lot, seeing as she was dying and wouldn't be able to do much for Him on earth. But they had been keeping her drugged up, so she couldn't feel much of the pain. The drugs made her want to sleep, and during her sleep time, she'd been dreaming about heaven—streets of gold, angels bowing while people sang beautiful music. The place seemed so peaceful that Kenisha had actually decided to give heaven a second thought. But she couldn't go one more place without knowing for sure she was going to be cared for. So if God wanted her in heaven, He would have to prove it.
"Oh, and one more thing." Kenisha wasn't familiar with the proper protocol of praying. She just knew she had some things she wanted to talk to God about, so she was just going to say what was on her mind."Could you answer one of Deidre's prayers, finally? I mean, come on, that woman really believes in You."
She turned over and went back to sleep. And as she began drifting, she realized that she was now going into an area that was very much the un-heaven. Where am I going? she wondered as she began to feel a strong gush of wind sweep in and knock her off her feet. She began swirling around and around this valley of dead people. Oh my God, she thought. I am literally seeing dead people.
She wanted to scream, but as she continued to swirl around and around, leeches began attaching themselves to her body. They covered every part of her as well as her mouth. Every time she reached up and pulled one off her mouth, another attached itself to her mouth so that she couldn't make a sound.
For some reason she was no longer just swirling around and around, but she was swirling and descending, swirling and descending. When her feet finally touched the ground, they landed on something sticky. Somehow Kenisha knew that she was standing on the blood of all those dead people she had seen while swirling her way into wherever she was. This was certainly not the heaven she had been dreaming about the past few days. This place felt hollow. Dreadful. Evil. Maybe she needed to rethink her whole strategy. Kenisha had thought that she would be doing God a favor if she forgave Him for His absentee Godship in her life. She had also thought that God would appreciate her being willing to live in heaven, but everything in her being told her that the place she was now standing in was the alternative. She would take that sweet, peaceful place she had been in over this horror show any day of the week.
"You belong here with me, Kenisha. You've been mine all your life. Don't change things now."
"Who said that?" Kenisha demanded. She hadn't belonged to anybody. Nobody had ever wanted her, not even God.
"Yes, that's right, Kenisha. You just keep remembering that God didn't do anything for you. Not when you were a kid, not when you had your own kids and the fathers left you one by one, and not when you got sick."
Whoever this person was who was whispering in her ear, he seemed to know a lot about her discontent. And he was right. She had been angry with God for a long time. Could she just let that anger go, even though God had never done a single thing for her?
"Don't let it go, Kenisha. You have a right to be angry with God. Just hold onto that anger a little longer and then you will be all mine. Stay here with me, and I will show you all. I'll show you things you've never even imagined."
"No!" Kenisha screamed. Something about this didn't seem right. She didn't want to belong to this man, whoever he was. She started flailing her arms to get the leeches off so she could get out of this place. She didn't want to be here; she wanted the whirlwind to pick her back up and swirl her out of this sticky, hollow, dark place. But the wind wouldn't come, so she just kept fighting her way out.
31
What's going on? What's wrong with her?" Deidre asked as Kenisha thrashed uncontrollably around the bed. The monitors were flashing and beeping so fast, Deidre thought they were going to short out.
"She's having a seizure. This sometimes happens at the time of death," the attending nurse told her.
"Death! No. Christmas is two days away. She can't die right now. We're all spending Christmas together." Deidre's thinking was a bit irrational, considering that she didn't have the ability to grant life or death, but she leaned down and whispered in Kenisha's ear, anyway."Calm down, Kenisha. Take deep breaths. We need you here for Christmas."
The noise from the monitors decreased. Her blood pressure level was coming down. The nurse said, "Keep talking to her. Maybe she's coming out of it."
"Johnson is on his way into the room with the kids. They brought presents for you. You have to be here to open them.come on, Kenisha. I know you. You don't want to disappoint those kids, and I know it."
The thrashing stopped, and Kenisha slowly opened her eyes. When she saw Deidre standing over her, she said, "Thank God. Are the leeches gone?"
"What leeches?"
"They're all over me. They feel slimy," Kenisha said as she attempted to brush something out of her bed.
The nurse leaned over to Deidre and said, "Sometimes when patients are close to death, they have these out-of-body experiences. We can't explain it, but it looks like Kenisha has been somewhere she didn't want to be."
"I don't want to go back there," Kenisha said with tears in her eyes.
Deidre knew exactly where Kenisha had been. It was definitely time for the Roman's road-to-salvation talk.
"You don't have to," Deidre said as she sat down next to Kenisha and grabbed the girl's hands to stop her from trying to remove leeches."You're safe now, Kenisha. You don't have any leeches on you."
"They weren't in heaven," Kenisha said as the horror of her experience finally began to subside.
"Who wasn't in heaven?" Deidre asked.
"The leeches. I didn't see them in heaven."
"When did you go to heaven?"
Kenisha shifted position as she turned toward Deidre."I've been dreaming about heaven ever since that man and I talked about it. But the place I dreamed about today wasn't heaven at all. There was
this voice in my ears, and he asked me to stay there with him. But it was too dark and too evil. Everybody was dead and their blood was all on the floor."
"Sorry it took us so long," Johnson said as he walked into the room with the kids."They made me stop at the snack machines and buy them all sorts of unhealthy things."
Deidre had become so engrossed in Kenisha's retelling of her horrific experience she had forgotten that Johnson and the kids had been coming along behind her. She turned to her husband and said, "Babe, do you think you could eat that stuff with the kids in the waiting area? I was just getting ready to go over the Roman's road-to-salvation with Kenisha."
Johnson did an about-face."Not a problem.come on, kids. Let's go get some more junk."
Kenisha put her hands under her head as she asked, "What's this Roman's road thing about?"
"It's called the Roman's road-to-salvation because we can find a clear and detailed map for salvation and an eternal relationship with God in the Letter to the Romans. If you'll allow me, I'd like to read and explain these scriptures to you."
Kenisha nodded, giving Deidre permission to continue.
Thank you, God. Please keep her heart open to receiving You. "The first scriptures I want to read to you are found in Romans 1:20-21:
"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened."
"So are you saying that because I didn't thank God for all the horrible things that happened to me, I now have to live in darkness?"
"No, Kenisha, that's not it. Let me keep going and then we can discuss. Okay?" Deidre said as she flipped over to Romans 3:23 and read: "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." She flipped some more pages and then read Romans 5:8: "But God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
She then went to Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Kenisha interrupted Deidre with a question: "So is that why I saw all those dead people? Was that a sign to me of what happens to people who die in their sins? Because the people in heaven seemed happy. There certainly wasn't any blood on the floor."
"I think God has blessed you with a unique ability to see into heaven and hell, and then make a choice as to which place you want to live out eternity. Most people don't get a sneak peek, Kenisha. So I'm hoping that you understand how special you are to God."
"I guess I don't understand how you can say that I'm special to God when I have suffered so much heartache."
"We all suffer from something, Kenisha. That's a part of life— since evil has come into the world, God has no choice but to let things play out, so that we can choose good over evil."
"But how do you choose good or evil? I don't understand."Kenisha said with a furrowed brow.
Smiling, Deidre said, "I'm glad you asked. That information is in the next two scriptures I want to read to you out of Romans, chapter 10: If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation . . . For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."
"So accepting good over evil is more like accepting God into your heart, and all you have to do to accomplish that is admit you have sinned, ask forgiveness, and believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that God raised him from the dead. That's it."
Kenisha opened her mouth to ask another question, but that's when the party got crashed. Kevin, Aisha, and her four children burst into the room singing Christmas songs.
"Hey," Kenisha said as she looked at her family.
"Hey, yourself," Kevin said as he set his boom box down.
"We thought you could use a little cheering up, so we brought the Christmas carolers over here to sing to you about Rudolph, Frosty, and the First Noel."
Kenisha smiled and the door burst open again, and Johnson and the kids came back in.
Jamal said, "We want to sing too."
"Well, come on, boy. Anyone can join this singing group," Kevin told him.
Deidre was smiling on the outside as the kids began to sing, but inwardly she worried that she might have missed another opportunity to close the deal. And she didn't know how many more chances she would have to talk to Kenisha about God.
"Y'all sound so good. Y'all should go door-to-door, every Christmas, singing for people," Kenisha said as she began to doze off again. She wanted to pull herself awake because she didn't know if she was going to drift into a nice place or a dark and evil place. But she was so tired that she couldn't make her eyelids stay open. As she drifted further and further into sleep, Kenisha began to see snapshots of Martha's life. She watched as one man after the next walked into her house and then walked out, taking a piece of her with him.
Kenisha's mind's eye focused on Martha sitting on a porch step, smoking a cigarette. She looked young, like she was in her twenties. A little girl ran up to her with a bruised knee. Kenisha quickly realized that that little girl was her. She remembered the incident. She had been five years old, and Billy Wilson had pushed her down on the playground. She'd run all the way home to tell her mama.
When Martha saw her, she put her cigarette down and pulled Kenisha into her arms."What happened, baby?"
Kenisha pulled away so she could show Martha her knee. She pointed at it and said, "Billy knocked me down."
Martha picked Kenisha up and took her inside. She got a washcloth and wiped away the blood from Kenisha's knee. She held the cloth there until the bleeding stopped, and then she bent her head and kissed Kenisha's knee."There. See, Mama made it all better."
Suddenly, Kenisha was at her ninth birthday party. Martha had made her a cake and had boiled hot dogs for her guests. But the big deal of the day came when Martha rolled a brandnew pink bike into the living room. It had a bow on it, so Kenisha knew it was hers. She jumped out of her seat and ran to the bike. She looked at Martha with a gleam in her eyes and said, "Is it really mine?"
"All yours, baby. I hope you like it." Martha gave her a hug and then whispered in her ear, "I love you."
That was the last time Kenisha remembered her mother hugging her or saying that she loved her. Soon after that party was when Martha had discovered that Jimmy Davis had been molesting her. Kenisha thought that Martha would come to her rescue, and then things would go back to the way they had been. But although Martha threw Jimmy out, things never went back to normal. It felt to Kenisha as though Martha blamed her for yet another man leaving her. But it hadn't been Kenisha's fault. All these years, Kenisha had wanted to know why Martha hadn't stood up for her. Why hadn't Jimmy been prosecuted for what he did? Why hadn't Martha loved her more than she had loved that monster?
When she woke again, Kevin and Aisha were still there. She waved them over to her bed.
"What's up, sis?" Aisha asked.
"I want to see my mother," Kenisha said.
Kevin and Aisha exchanged stunned glances.
"You sure about that, Ke-Ke?" Kevin asked."She's been hoping that you would ask to see her."
"Yes. I'm sure. Bring her here on Christmas Eve."
32
Deidre's mother arrived on the morning of Christmas Eve. Loretta then spent the day helping Deidre prepare the Christmas meal that they were going to take to hospice with them the next day. The plan was that the children would go to church with them tonight, then Deidre and Johnson would drop them off at hospice so they could spend the night with Kenisha and the rest of their family, because Kevin, Angelina, Aisha, and her children were all planning to spend the night. Aisha told Deidre that she believed Martha was going to sp
end the night as well, but that all depended on whether Kenisha threw her out of the room.
Deidre was going to come back home and spend the rest of Christmas Eve with Johnson and her mother. Then in the morning they would pack up the food and head out to hospice to enjoy Christmas with the rest of their family. For that is how Deidre felt. She had truly bonded with Kenisha's family and hoped that they would want to be a continuing part of the children's lives.
"Okay, the sweet potato pies are in the oven, now what?" Loretta asked her daughter as they stood in the kitchen.
"I think that's everything. Let's go sit down for a little while, I'm tired," Deidre said. They stretched out on the sectional in the family room and listened to the Christmas music that was softly playing on the radio. Johnson had taken the kids out to see the Christmas decorations throughout the neighborhood."Thanks for coming, Mom. I can't tell you how glad I am to have you here with us."
"I wouldn't have missed this for anything in the world. I got a chance to meet my grandchildren. I saw Johnson's smiling face, and tomorrow I get to meet Kenisha."
Deidre yawned."I wish you could have met her before now, and then you could have seen just what a vibrant person she was. This illness has taken its toll on her. She's pretty weak now. I'm just praying that she'll live through tomorrow. I don't want the kids to remember Christmas as the day their mother died."
"That's a worthy thing to pray for. So I'll join my faith with yours on that," Loretta said.
"Thanks, Mom," Deidre said, then asked, "Is Michelle okay with you being here? Aren't the kids going to miss you?"
"Rod's mom is coming down for Christmas. So the kids will have a grandma there for them. She's just not as much fun as I am, though," Loretta said with a chuckle.
Deidre was thrilled that her mom had come to visit, especially while she and Johnson were going through so many changes. She needed the extra support, but she didn't want her nieces and nephews to be without their NaNa. So it made Deidre feel so much better to know that Michelle's mother-in-law would be there for the grandkids.
Long Time Coming Page 23
