This morning had been the last straw for Martha. At thirty she saw no reason to cling to life. Her only true love, Michael, had died in a tragic accident ten years earlier. Lonely with a one year old child she had to raise alone, she had too quickly taken up with George. She thought his drinking would stop once they were married, but it didn't. She never dreamed he would hit her, but he did repeatedly over five long years before she had the strength to leave him. She had to protect her children: little Michael, the child of her heart's only real love and little Mary, the product of the only pregnancy in three to survive George's cruelties. Her children were her life. She tried to do the right thing by them, but it was very hard being a single mother. She had married young and planned to go back to school. Then Michael had died and she had married George who would hear none of her dreams and "forbade" her to go to school or to work. She had drifted in and out of depression. She worked a few places but seldom for very long for the places she worked didn't believe in accommodating a single parent with sick children.
Michael had been diagnosed with acute myelocytic leukemia three years earlier. Chemotherapy put him into remission for 18 months. She was glad at least that she had lost her last job when she did and so qualified for welfare so at least some of the hospital bills could be paid and Michael could have the bone marrow transplant he needed. That had been 16 months ago and unfortunately it hadn't worked. The leukemia returned 8 months ago and Michael had left her and joined his namesake father. Still she had held on for little Mary, they were all alone in the world. Martha's parents had died in a plane crash two years before she married Michael and her only sister died of breast cancer before little Michael became ill. Michael's parents had never really gotten close to her and they lived 1000 miles away. When she remarried, they just severed all ties despite little Michael's need for grandparents. George had severed all ties with his family long before he married Martha. So it was just Martha and little Mary now.
With no family and no skills, it is hard to find a job that will afford the cost of daycare. Mary was only 5 after all. So Martha worked part-time as a check out clerk in the local supermarket. Maybe when Mary was in school all day next year, she could work more, make "more" of their life. That was before this morning. Mary had been okay last night, except for a little cold. Martha read her favorite bedtime story and gave her a teaspoon of generic Dimetapp and tucked her into bed. She checked Mary three hours later before going to bed herself, noticed she had a little fever, woke her up long enough to give her some Tylenol and asked her how she felt. Mary said she had a headache. She told Martha: I love you, Mommy and fell back to sleep. Her fever seemed to decrease some and Mary seemed to be resting, so Martha went to bed. She woke up a couple hours later to a gasping sound coming from Mary's room. She found Mary in the throes of a seizure. She called 911 in a panic.
The ambulance seemed to take forever to arrive even though it was only a few minutes. The squad took Mary and Martha to the nearest hospital. Mary, the doctor told Martha, had meningitis, treatment had a already begun but Mary had suffered two more seizures in the ER. They had given her medication, but Martha needed to understand that Mary was critically ill. Mary was flown to the area's pediatric teaching hospital. Martha prayed all night by her side in the ICU. Mary never regained consciousness. At 6 am she had another seizure despite all the medicine and her heart stopped. Doctors tried to resuscitate her repeatedly as she hovered between life and death; but an hour later there was nothing more they could do and Mary too died despite all efforts to save her. There would be an autopsy, but they were pretty certain that Mary had succumbed to meningococcal meningitis which is just so deadly that sometimes nothing helps.
Martha would need treatment also to prevent her becoming ill.
Nurses, a social worker, and someone from pastoral ministry came and talked with Martha. She felt dead inside though and couldn't hear anything they said really. She thanked them for their help, insisted there was no one they could call for her and that she would just take a bus home, and no, she didn't need a cab voucher. She left the hospital and remembered that the inner city hospital was close to the lake. Yes, she would walk to the lake and join those she loved. What else was there left to do? Why should she live? No one cared about her anymore; all those she cared about were now dead, even her little Mary had left her. Her heart felt dead already. She looked around at the strangers on the street as the city came to life that morning. She felt invisible. No one looked at each other; each was absorbed in their own agenda. The world will never miss me; I don't even know why I was here in the first place. Yes, the lake is the answer. Find an isolated place and just take a walk into oblivion. Martha walked finally with a purpose. She like everyone else around her saw no one else, just a herd of humanity.
Jane had trouble waking that morning, she liked the new job downtown but she didn't like the extra hour and a half earlier she had to get up to get there . Still she had learned a new outlook on life this past year and it gave her the strength to get up and get going even if her body just wanted to crawl back underneath the covers. To think a year ago she wasn't too sure she would still be alive. At 29 no woman expects to hear the doctor say "cancer." Thankfully, they had caught her breast cancer very early. She had survived prophylactic chemotherapy and the brush with her own mortality had taught her to live. She had been unable to conceive and the infertility workup and treatments had put a real stress on her marriage. Facing the reality of her mortality had made both she and her husband, Tom, do some real soul searching. Not only had they found a renewed love for each other, but God had become central in their life again.
It had been a year of challenge, but ultimately of renewal. Jane knew now life was as uncertain as it was wonderful. So she and Tom had resolved not to waste a moment of it. Jane walked from the subway station a few blocks to her office building. Her new approach to life gave her a different attitude to the strangers around her. She decided to really acknowledge those she passed on the street. All she said to them was"Good Morning!" but she did so sincerely and she looked each person in the eye as much as anyone allowed her to do so. It was a simple little gesture, but Jane felt committed not only to celebrating her own life, but in this small way to acknowledging the gift of the lives of those around her as well. This"Good Morning" ritual had become so much a part of her that she barely thought about it consciously anymore; it was just part of breathing for her. It was part of the fabric of who Jane had become. It was a genuine part of her song of life.
Jane and Martha crossed paths for only a few seconds. Jane looked into Martha's tear-filled eyes and said: "Good Morning!" and then seeing Martha's obvious pain she added: "GOD BLESS YOU!!" and then the stream of morning humanity swept them away from each other. It hardly seemed a saving act, certainly nothing heroic or seemingly extraordinary. However the sincerity of Jane's "Good Morning" broke through Martha's shroud with enough light to stop her in her tracks. That stranger cared enough about me to ask God to bless me! My Michael loved me like that and more. He would have wanted me to carry on but the pain is too great I can't do it alone. Please someone help me. Please, God help me, I can't, I just can't bear anymore. Martha saw a policeman parked at the street talking to a shopkeeper. With the strength she received from Jane's greeting, she approached him and simply said: I need help.
Martha was hospitalized two weeks and had outpatient therapy for six months but eventually went back to school and became a nurse. Five years after Mary's death she married a fellow nurse named Joe and knew at long last a love that was sacred again. Five years after that she walked into the room of her new admission, a 40 year old woman with recurrent metastatic breast cancer who was admitted for chemotherapy. Her name was Jane. Martha introduced herself. When Jane smiled weakly and said: "Good Morning!," Martha knew this was the woman who had saved her life so long before. Martha started crying and Jane said: "Please, I'm not dead yet!. Then Martha told her a story of "one stitch" in time that held the tapestry together. Martha helped Jane endure and persevere through the challenge of chemo and later radiation; both of their lives forever changed by the other, one stitch at a time.
May we be open to all the ways we can provide one needed stitch for each other's tapestries as we journey together through life.
God bless us all.
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