Hannah's Gift (7 page)

A LIGHT SNOW WAS FALLING OUTSIDE, JUST IN TIME FOR
Christmas Day. A tiny artificial tree, hung with miniature ornaments and lights, sat in one corner of the hospital room next to stacks of books, puzzles, stuffed animals, and a Barbie doll. All the windows were covered with stick-on holiday decals of stockings, candy canes, and stars. A chain of red and green construction paper was draped from one end of the room to the other.

It seemed that Bethlehem’s grace had made it to our neck of the woods; Hannah was still alive, and the baby inside me was, too.

For the past three weeks, Hannah and I had been in isolation from germs and the world in a ten-by-twelve-foot room. Although this hospital was more than an hour and a half’s drive from our house, it was the only one in our area with the facility to perform bone marrow transplants that had agreed to let me be with Hannah twenty-four hours a day. Insisting that I be allowed to stay with her was one of the best decisions Claude and I ever made.

For ten days, doctors had pumped Hannah’s body full of chemotherapy drugs, in an attempt to destroy any cancer cells that remained. The bags of chemicals were covered with fluorescent orange warning stickers that read “Danger,” “Toxic Chemicals,” “Hazardous Waste.” After hanging them on Hannah’s IV pole, the nurses checked, double-checked, and triple-checked their clipboards before starting the drip. I recorded everything in a small notebook Claude had given me. He had lined it with rows of narrow columns to record the date, time, name, and dosage of every medication Hannah received. It became, in an odd sort of way, a journal of the last year of Hannah’s life.

As soon as one bag was empty, another was hung in its place. Almost immediately, Hannah’s body had begun to deteriorate, and I began to believe that Claude and I had made the gravest mistake of our lives. The chemicals made Hannah sick to her stomach and burned her mouth, throat, and intestinal tract. Her hair fell out in handfuls; only a few wisps stubbornly clung to her bald head. Every inch of her skin was covered with a raw, bumpy rash. Beneath the rash, her flesh turned the color of pollen.

In an attempt to minimize bedsores and infection, the doctors ordered me to bathe her five times a day in a blue plastic tub the nurses set up in the middle of the floor. Each time I lifted Hannah’s limp, aching body off the bed, she whimpered and moaned. Several times I quietly rebelled against the insanity of it all, lied to the nurses, and told them I had bathed her when I had actually let her sleep instead.

During the first week of treatment, I prayed every day that things wouldn’t get worse, that Hannah’s body could have a rest from the exhaustion and pain.

When the doctors reminded me that Hannah’s white blood cell count would have to drop to almost zero before the chemotherapy could be stopped, and the closer she got to that goal, the sicker she would become, I began to pray for her to be sick, sick enough for the madness to stop.

Finally, when the light had almost faded from her eyes, the chemotherapy bags were taken down, and bags of her own bone marrow, harvested earlier, were pumped through the Broviac into her veins. The room filled with a choking odor that sweated out of Hannah’s feverish body, a combination of chemotherapy agents and bone marrow preservative. The smell burned my lungs and nostrils, making it difficult to breathe without feeling sick. I now knew what the valley of the shadow of death smelled like: fermented tomato juice.

For days Hannah lay in bed, still as death, barely able to sip water from a straw. The nurses drew blood from her every four hours to make sure her white cell count was continuing to rise. Each time, I held my breath. Slowly, as Hannah’s cells began to regenerate, I transitioned from praying that she would live until Christmas to praying that her counts would be high enough to allow visitors. It was a race to the finish. The numbers climbed steadily for a week, and then, three days before Christmas, they stalled, dropped, and refused to budge. Two days before Christmas, the nurse on the afternoon shift took an extra, unscheduled sample of
Hannah’s blood, hoping for the best. Her hunch paid off. It was as if someone in our room had won the lottery; doctors, nurses, even the floor mopper had knocked on the window and signaled a “thumbs-up.”

Now Hannah was a vision of loveliness, kneeling on her bed in front of the dollhouse she had received from Santa. She was wearing a lace headband around her bald head and a new ivory satin dress that would have been perfect for the flower girl at a Mafia wedding. That is why I had known she would love it.

The night before, on Christmas Eve, Claude had come to stay with her so I could run out and buy a few last-minute gifts. It was the first time I had stepped out of the hospital in three weeks. As I had stood in a store at the mall, holding up the Mafia Christmas dress, a woman browsing through a rack of little boys’ trousers noticed.

“Are you thinking of buying that dress?” she asked.

“Well, yes, but it’s pretty expensive,” I said sheepishly.

The woman smiled. “I have three boys,” she said emphatically. “BUY THAT DRESS!”

Now, looking at Hannah, I was glad I had. It was the first time she had worn anything besides a hospital gown in two and a half weeks. She had even buzzed the nurses’ station and told them to come to see. Compared to how she had looked days before, she looked positively radiant. Although her face and arms were bloated from having so many fluids passing through her and her eyes looked dull and sleepy, she was sitting up. Her skin was less yellow, and only lightly speckled from the residue of her rash.

Claude, Will, and I grinned at each other from behind our paper masks. The three of us were also wearing plastic shower caps, long-sleeved hospital gowns, rubber gloves, and elastic-edged booties. The masks constantly slipped off our noses no matter how creatively we tied them behind our heads. Hannah called the outfits “space suits.” Everyone, except her, had to wear one. Her immune system was still so compromised that the slightest infection could kill her.

It felt so good to be together. I felt as if my cup was running over. Everything that would have seemed ordinary a month ago now seemed as miraculous as a resurrection. Claude seemed to think so, too. He was hopping forward and backward, tipping his camera, snapping pictures.

“I can’t wait to show everyone how great she looks,” Claude said.

“Hey, you two,” I said to Will and Hannah, “Daddy and I have some news to share with you.”

The two of them looked up. Claude reached for my hand and squeezed.

“Our family is going to have a new baby.”

“When?” Will and Hannah cried in unison.

“In July,” Claude said.

The two of them squealed and hugged each other.

“Wow,” said Will, “this is the best Christmas present ever. Hannah, don’t you think it would be really cool if it’s a baby brother?”

Hannah frowned. “ I don’t think that will work, Will,” she said. “I want to name him Briar Rose, so he
has
to be a girl.”

“Well, if his name is Briar Rose,
I
hope he’s a girl, too,” Will said.

While Claude continued to take more pictures, I let my eyes and heart be filled with all the joy in the room. What we were sharing could never be captured on the surface of a glossy photograph. This joy didn’t need to be documented; it already had a permanent home in our hearts.

ABOUT A WEEK AFTER CHRISTMAS, HANNAH’S TRANSPLANT
doctor entered her room with big news.

“You can have anything you want to eat for dinner tonight, Hannah-banana,” Dr. Tomato-head said.

Dr. Tomato-head’s real name was Dr. Brockstein. Hannah had started calling him Dr. Tomato-head when he insisted on calling her Hannah-banana.

He was obviously pleased with his generous offer. Hannah looked at him thoughtfully. She was wearing her Christmas dress with her red shoes.

“It’s true, Hannah,” I said. “Your body has worked really hard to get strong enough for you to be able to eat again. You can have anything you want.”

She screwed up her face and tapped the side of her head with her finger.

“Hmmm …” she said, closing her eyes to think. “Do you have any hard rolls?” she asked.

The doctor and I looked at each other, surprised.

“I think we do,” he said, “and if we don’t, we’ll get some.”

“Thank you,” Hannah said, folding her hands in her lap.

“Is that
all
you want?” he asked.

“No, actually, there’s one more thing,” Hannah said. Dr. Tomato-head’s face brightened with obvious relief.

“I would like some grape juice, too, please.”

“Are you sure that’s all?” he asked, his brow slightly wrinkled in confusion. “You could have pizza, ice cream, chocolate chip cookies …
anything!”

Hannah peered at him, slightly annoyed now.

“I want a hard roll and grape juice,” she said, holding her hands out, palm side up in exasperation,
“like Communion at church,”
she added, as if it were so obvious that we were dolts for not seeing it.

She turned to me. “Mom, will you help me take off my dress? I don’t want to spill juice on it.”

Ten minutes later, Dr. Tomato-head, two nurses, and I watched as Hannah slowly and thoughtfully tore the roll into pieces and dipped each one into the glass of grape juice before putting it in her mouth. Oblivious to us, she chewed, swallowed, and stared silently into the slip of twilight sky outside her window. I wanted to kneel in front of her and kiss her feet.

Two hours later, she rang the nurses and asked for sliced tomatoes with mustard.

HANNAH’S HEAD WAS NOW COMPLETELY BALD; THE LAST
few wisps of hair had finally dropped off. We had been in the transplant unit for four and a half weeks. Both of us had had enough; we were more than ready to go home.

I handed her a red plastic cup, filled with apple juice. She took a sip.

“Nope, it’s not right,” she said, handing it back to me.

I couldn’t believe it. I had been doing it, at her request, the same way for days: apple juice in the red cup, milk in the green, Pepsi in the yellow, and water in the blue.

“It’s not right,” she repeated, looking evenly at me.

“Which one isn’t right?” I asked.

“All of them,” she said.

I wanted to throw the whole lot against the wall. I breathed slowly and counted to ten. Usually, it was my greatest joy to let Hannah decide which beverage she wanted in each cup. While some people seemed concerned that I might be spoiling her, I didn’t agree. I saw it as a way to preserve some sense of Hannah’s dignity. So many things
were literally being forced down her throat, she needed to have control over something. Today, though, I felt more exhausted than willing.

“Hannah, this is exactly the way you’ve asked me to do it every other day.”

“I know,” she said, folding her hands on her lap, “but today,” she paused, and leaned forward, drawing her words out as if she were speaking to a particularly thick-headed child, “
I changed my mind.
”

My exasperation melted away as I threw my head back and laughed. She had said it as if changing one’s mind and running the risk of pissing someone off was a new concept to me. She was right; it was.

NOW THAT HER COUNTS WERE HIGH ENOUGH, HANNAH WAS
allowed to venture out of her room. No longer content to stroll or wander, what she loved most these days was speed.

“Let’s go for a ride,” Hannah said.

We pulled her bike from its parking spot under the anteroom sink and pushed it into the center of the hall. The two-wheeler was hot pink and purple and sported a pair of training wheels. The Make-A-Wish Foundation had left it for her on Christmas Eve. Hannah stuffed her pink blanket into the basket on the front and climbed onto the seat. I gave her a slight push. Stretching her legs as far as they could reach, she began to pedal. As she picked up speed on the linoleum floor, I ran along beside her, the IV pole careening. The bike rocked from side to side, its sparkling handlebar streamers flying.

“Hang on, Hannah,” I shrieked as she lifted both hands to wave to the nurses at the nurses’ station, who grinned and waved as we passed.

“You’re going to wear your mom out, Hannah!” one of them cried.

Hannah threw her head back and laughed. I laughed, too. It was more joy than I could fit in my heart to see her having so much fun.

“Look out below!” she shouted as we rounded the corner by the elevators. She coasted to a stop and hopped off her bike to turn it around. As I untangled and readjusted the IV tubes for the return lap, I noticed a small crowd of people weeping and whispering outside a rarely used room at the end of the hall.

“What’s happening down there?” I asked a nurse who had broken away from the group and walked toward me.

“The little boy in that room was hit by a car this morning and just died,” she said softly.

I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach and, at the same time, lucky in a way that I would have hated to admit out loud. I couldn’t imagine losing Hannah to death so suddenly and unexpectedly, without time to prepare her or myself for what was coming, without a chance to savor every last drop of her before she was gone. Had this boy’s parents even had a chance to say good-bye?

No matter how intense and frightening the months since Hannah’s diagnosis had been, I felt grateful for every moment I had shared with her. Even the darkest ones had contained slivers of savage joy. I now knew that there was something simple yet exquisite about the gift of time; time to savor, time to remember, time to say good-bye.