Jessi’s mouth fell open. “What? What did you say to me? You almost kill our son, and you are wondering why I took so long to come and see you? Of all the stupid, idiotic things to question.”
The pain and rejection Mark had felt all his life surfaced. “Yes, I know. You have been by Ethan’s side, not moving, being the dutiful mother. You’ve been the dutiful mother since the day he was born. If you had been the least bit a dedicated and loving wife, then we might not be here right now. But no, I’ve had to sit in your backseat since the day that kid came into our lives. You could have at least checked to see if I was okay. Maybe you could have shed a few tears over me. But no, I’m just not worth it, am I?”
Jessi couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She was almost too stunned to even reply. Almost. She said the first and only thing that came to mind. “Go to hell. Go straight to hell. If I never see your face again it would be too soon.” She turned and left the room. Her joke of a marriage was over. She returned to the ICU recovery waiting room and waited for her next five minutes with her son.
***
Six months later, Jessi was sitting next to her son’s bed and reading his favorite book to him when the doctor came into the room. “Jessi, we need to talk.”
Knowing how she felt about discussing Ethan’s health situation in front of him, Dr. Phillips motioned for her to follow him out to the hallway.
Jessi looked at Ethan and said, “Sweetheart, Mommy will be right back. I just have to talk with the doctor for a few minutes.” She laid down the book and went into the hallway. “Yes, what is it, Dr. Phillips?” she questioned.
“Jessi, I know we have been over this, but there still has been no change in Ethan’s situation. How long do you plan on letting him continue like this? The ventilator is all that is keeping him alive. There is no, nor has there been any, brain activity since the accident. You work all day then come here till we kick you out. You go home, go to bed, and do it all over again the next day. How long is this going to continue? You need to make a decision, Jessi.”
Jessi’s eyes filled with tears. She didn’t say a word, just turned, walked back into Ethan’s room, picked up his book, and started reading again. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. She wasn’t ready to let go.
Why do they keep asking me to let you go?
***
Another ten months went by. It was Ethan’s sixth birthday, his second birthday celebration since the accident. For his fifth birthday she had brought in cake and candles and birthday hats for everyone to wear. The nurses on duty and Aunt Merry joined her in singing “Happy Birthday.” They talked to Ethan as if he would wake up at any moment. On his second birthday in the home, the one they had just celebrated, Aunt Merry was the only one who celebrated with her. Christmas had come and gone. She had scrounged and scrimped and bought him that outdoor play set he had wanted for the previous Christmas. She was so excited when she told him about it. She’d even hired the store handyman to come and put it together for her. It was all ready for him to wake up and come home to play on it. It still sat in the backyard, unused.
Jessi now spent every Saturday afternoon reading to Ethan at the long-term care facility where he now lived. She loved just sitting next to him and talking to him. She would tell him about her day and how work went. It especially gave her joy to talk about all the kids in her third grade class. On this particular Saturday afternoon, Dr. Phillips had made a point of being in the hallway when Jessi came to visit.
“Hi, Jessi.” They were on a first-name basis after all this time. He called her Jessi, she called him Doc.
“Hi, yourself, Doc. How’s my boy today?”
“The answer’s the same, Jessi. It’s always the same. We need to talk, and this time I need you to answer me.” Doc led Jessi to the lounge, where he poured both of them a strong cup of coffee. “I know you don’t want to hear this, Jessi, but it’s been over a year and things are not getting better. In fact, things are getting worse.”
She understood what he was saying. She had been giving Ethan baths on Saturdays now for a few months. She had watched as his sores had gotten worse. It seemed no matter how much she and the nurses turned him, the red, open sores were always a constant in his life. He had lost a considerable amount of weight. He was a shell of what he once was. His muscles had to be stretched daily, and still problems were developing.
Jessi looked at the floor. She had known this day was coming. “Doc, Easter is in a few weeks. Let me spend it with my son, and if he hasn’t made a change for the better, we’ll talk.”
Doc nodded his head. It was the most he’d gotten from her thus far. Her resolve had cracked seeing her son in his current condition. When the nurses had asked his permission for Jessi to start helping with some of Ethan’s more basic needs, he’d agreed, hoping she would see the kind of life she was allowing her son to live. He was seeing the results of that decision. Hopefully, come Easter she would see that setting her son free would be the best all around for everyone, especially Ethan. Jessi walked back into Ethan’s room and finished reading his favorite story to him. Doc picked up his file and slowly headed to his car. He had done everything that he could think of for Ethan. There just wasn’t anything left to be done.
Easter passed with no changes. The hardest thing Jessi ever had to do was pull the plug. It was early in May that she sat by her son and watched him breathe his last breath. Tears coursed their way down her cheeks as she said good-bye. Aunt Merry sat by her side and held her hand. She too wept.
Ethan was buried in the Oaklawn Cemetery. His tombstone simply read:
Ethan Richard Jensen
January 27, 1994 – May 6, 2000
Beloved Son
Chapter 3
Meredith Duvall opened the door for the first of her guests. Well, really she called them friends, but anyone who graced her door was treated like a guest. One by one, Caroline, Betsy, Mabel, Judy, and Georgina all made their way into Meredith’s dining room. First, they spent time catching up with one another and what was happening in their lives and the lives of their children. Snacks were shared, and tea was poured for a time of fellowship. Soon a quietness settled upon all of the ladies, and they made their way to the living room. Each woman retreated to her own private prayer closet, whether it was kneeling by the sofa or sitting upright in a chair because of arthritis. It didn’t matter, as God knew each heart and where each woman was coming from. They had been meeting for years together to pray. A couple of their original prayer partners had gone home to be with the Lord. A few new ones were added. God brought them in, and God took them home. While it was in some ways sad, they all knew where their final destination would be and they all longed for the day when they would be told, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
In the meantime, they all had a purpose here on earth, and praying together in one accord they saw many miracles happen. Most of the time, their prayer hour was a quiet time. Sometimes one or more of the women would pray out loud, wanting the backing prayers of the whole group. Most of their petitions remained the same, for the miracles usually didn’t happen overnight. They certainly happened; they just took time. When a woman entered the group, she added her unsaved loved ones’ names to the prayer list. This prayer list was their main goal. They didn’t pray for things that would pass away; they prayed for the things which would not pass away.
Before Ethan had gone to his heavenly home, Meredith had been sorely tempted to deviate from their normal order of things to pray for his healing, not that she didn’t do this in her own prayer time (as did many of the other women). But long ago this particular time was set aside for the saving of souls. She already knew that little Ethan, should he die, would be waiting for her with the Father. That little guy had more faith than most adults she knew. She would never understand the ways of God, and what was done was done. So all of her efforts went into praying for Jessi and Mark. Her patience was beginning to wane, and she needed the strength of her fellow prayer warriors to help build her up.
Meredith loved music, and knowing the power there was in worship, she began to sing. “I love you, Lord, and I lift my voice, to worship You, oh my soul, rejoice…” All the ladies joined in. Their voices lifted as one unified voice in worship to their heavenly Father. One song led to another, then another. Each song was a powerful expression of love to their creator. Gradually, the music faded and the prayers began.
Kneeling on her favorite chair, she began to pray out loud. “Dear Father, I love you, Lord. Oh, how I love you. You know my heart’s cry, even before I speak it out loud. Lord, you know it. Even so, Lord, you have made me a promise, and I am here to respectfully ask for that promise to be fulfilled. I love that girl. She was the daughter that I could never have. I practically raised her while her mama and daddy were off doing their own thing. She was my own answer to prayer. You blessed me so much when you put that little girl in my life. Father, please, she is going through so much right now, and she needs you more than she knows. Only
your
strength will be able to get her through all she has to endure. Father, surely you, Maker of the universe, know that. Please, Lord, let it be soon that the angels in heaven are rejoicing over her name being added to the Lamb’s Book of Life. Father, I beg of you to protect her. I also know that you have a strong calling on her husband, Mark, Lord. Only you know what that is and what it’s going to take to get him to recognize it. I am but flesh, Lord, and it pains me sometimes to see that man hurt Jessi like he does. Yet I know that he too is your creation and you love him with a love my sinful self will never understand this side of heaven. Oh, Lord, let your will be accomplished soon and let the pain come to a halt, just for a season of rest. Even you rested, Lord. How much more is rest needed for a frail sinner, Father?”
Many tears fell, and many prayers were lifted that day on behalf of Mark and Jessi. As each woman felt a release from the Holy Spirit, she would quietly leave and make her way home. Meredith lifted her eyes to see an empty room. She was the last one to be released from prayer time, and rightly so. It was her little girl they were praying for.
Chapter 4
Mark turned to look at the building he had slept in, eaten in, breathed in, and lived in for the past six years. He remembered the day he was first brought here. He’d had his day in court and had been found guilty. He was sentenced to prison for his third drunk driving charge. His sentence was considerably longer because of the vehicular assault charge involving a minor, his son, Ethan. He’d walked into the Oklahoma State Reformatory in Granite, Oklahoma, with an attitude the size of Texas. It had taken a while, but eventually his attitude was chipped off his shoulders one knock at a time. He was mad at the world when he was sentenced to spending the next eight years of his life in prison. The object of most of his fury was Jessi. She was the reason he was here, and he hated her with a passion. He wasn’t able to unleash his anger toward Jessi. He’d never had the opportunity to look upon her face again, so he directed it toward anyone he came in contact with—the guards, the other inmates, the cooks (though he learned to rein in his temper as he maintained a healthy appetite), as well as the chaplain.
The only person who saw the defeated, broken man he’d become was the only person who had ever visited him, his sister, Julia. His brother, David, gave up on him long ago and would have nothing to do with him, even more so when he heard why Mark was in prison. During his first and only outburst at his sister, when she visited for the first time, she stood to leave and told him if this was what she was in for by coming, she wouldn’t be returning. He quickly apologized and asked her to please sit down. This was also when he started to realize just how beaten and broken he was. Later that night in the infirmary, after being beaten by a couple of inmates who were tired of his macho attitude, while sleep still alluded him and nightmares occupied what little sleep he did have, he realized that his life was not worth living. There was nothing left to live for. His wife had divorced him. She wouldn’t take his phone calls, and the few letters he sent her were given back to him with “return to sender” stamped on them. He’d killed his son while he was drunk driving. He couldn’t stand the skin he lived in, the smell of himself, his face in a mirror, or the haunted, lost look coming back from eyes that always stared him down in his reflection. He wanted out. He wanted to die.