Jesus in Our Hearts

With Jesus gone, our home seemed empty and cold.

Jesus died on a Friday, May 22. After he passed Mom, Dad, Little Mary and I sat in his hospital room for a few hours and then for lack of something better to do, filed out of the room and went home. Once at home I could find no comfort in the familiar surroundings. Everything looked the same but was somehow different. It was like a can of soda with no fizz. The world just seemed flat.

Mom and Dad sat in silence on the sofa in the family room, staring at the television even though it wasn’t turned on. Mom sat with her face in her hand and Dad lay against the sofa's back with his eyes staring up at the ceiling. They both looked exhausted after a long battle.

Little Mary and I tried to play dolls in her room. I thought of how Jesus had butchered the hair of all of my dolls and used to throw my tea dishes across the room when he was two. I wish I had those dolls and those dishes. I wanted to play with them. I wanted to save everything Jesus had ever touched. But many of those things were gone and I was angry with myself for not relishing their importance.

Grand Mary came over and cooked us dinner and while we all sat down together, nobody was really interested in eating except Little Mary. Grandma told us we needed to eat to keep up our strength. Her little pep talk fell on deaf ears.

The next day mom began making funeral arrangements. They had already picked out a small casket and the thought of that made me sick. How could they go pick out a coffin while he was still alive? How do you walk into a shop, select the coffin and then go visit your son in the hospital? I thought they had given up on Jesus while he was still living. Maybe if they had more faith he would have never died? I started to blame Mom and Dad for the cancer. But it did not really matter how I felt, because Mom and Dad were not really there to receive my anger.

Mom and Dad walked around with blank faces. They hardly talked. Mom slept in bed throughout most of the day. She only dragged herself out of bed to go to the bathroom. She stopped eating with us in the dining room and then stopped eating all together. Dad began bringing her water and Fruit Loops with milk into the bedroom. Once in, he would close the door behind him. Little Mary asked me when Mom was going to wake up and I had to tell her that I did not know.

Dad tried to pretend that everything was normal. He continued to fix us the frozen dinners called Kids Cuisine or bring home Happy Meals that did not make us happy and only seemed to fill the emptiness for a few moments. They don’t fill the emptiness as much as push it away until it swings back.

Little Mary did not understand why our lives had become so different. She kept asking Dad when Jesus will come back to live with us. Dad said that Jesus was already with us, that we carry him around in our heart. Little Mary said that she didn’t want to carry Jesus around in her heart, that she wants him in the playroom so they can build towers with blocks or run toy cars around the tracks. Dad just looked down at the floor and walked away.

Little Mary also wanted to know when Mom would come out of her room. She was full of lots of questions that God couldn’t answer.

God sat in the living room most of the day, but he didn’t do much living in there. He dressed us up in the morning, brought mom a glass of juice and a piece of toast. Then he dropped us off at our classrooms and walked down to the first grade. He had to pass the classroom that Jesus would have attended had he still been alive.

At school most of the other kids looked at me as if I had the plague. As if by talking to me they might get Jesus’ cancer. I later realized that Jesus death had made everyone uncomfortable and nobody knew what to say. Nobody that was, but Jimmy Stein. Jimmy told me that he knew that Jesus could not really perform miracles. “No one named Merv could be the Son of God,” he said. I told him that we were all the children of God even his sorry little self.

After school, Dad brought us home. That’s when he warmed up our dinner in the microwave or emptied the fast-food bags. He brought mom a bowl of soup and took out the toast that might have one or two clefts in it. Each day we waited to see how much of the toast Dad brought out. On the days when it was mostly eaten we felt as though Mom might be getting better.

After dinner I attempted my homework. Dad sometimes helped but he had trouble focusing and sometimes he told me not to worry about it but I hated to bring my papers back to school without being checked.

I took care of my little sister once the sun began to set and Dad went to sit in front of the television. Only he rarely turned it on anymore. He poured himself a brown drink and sat in the dark. Sometimes, when he thought we were sleeping I could hear him cry. It was a soft, melancholy song and it made the whole house a little colder.

It had been a little over three weeks since Jesus had died and our routine had not faltered. I was tired of all the silence. I missed Jesus, but now I was also missing my Mom and Dad. I had to talk to someone. I went to Mom and she failed to move. She blinked her watery eyes and looked through me. I left her side and lay down next to Little Mary. After Little Mary fell asleep I walked out into the living room. The house was dark and God was sitting on the sofa. He was drinking his brown drink and crying; mom remained in bed.

I looked at the cup that sat on the glass coffee table. It was still full. For the last week Dad would only pour himself the drink. While he sat on the couch, he never brought the glass to his lips. After about an hour, I could hear him get up and dump the whiskey down the drain. I guess sitting down with the glass was just part of his routine.

“Dad?” I called to him.

He jumped at my words, not realizing that I had come into the room. “Oh Mary,” he said and touched my head. “Are you up again? You really should be getting some rest. Isn’t tomorrow a school day?" His sentences seemed disconnected, like individual beads strung together on a chain. He said, "To tell you the truth I kind of lost track of the days of the week. They all sort of seem the same.” I felt his fingers run through my head. I felt his warmth and realized that all along, in the middle of all the craziness, he always radiated love. It came in the gentleness of his touch, almost feminine.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I said. I leaned up against him.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he repeated. Dad let his arm fall along my back and pulled me close to him. “You know Mary, it was easier last time. I was in Heaven and I knew Jesus would be up there with me in three days. It hurt to watch him suffer but I knew we would soon be together. I was almost happy that his Crucifixion had come to pass because I had missed him so during those thirty-three years on Earth.”

“But now, it is different. I know we will be united, but something. Something very small and deep inside of me brings doubt. And that little bit of uncertainty makes the sorrow so great and the loss even greater. I guess it is that little scrape of doubt that makes us human, and our lot tougher.”

“But we have him here in our heart,” I said trying to believe it. Actually, as I spoke the words I realized that I did believe it.

“Yes we do,” God agreed. “Like Little Mary, I too long to see him in the family room. I want to watch him play with his blocks and toy cars. I want to be able to comfort him when he is frightened. I want to watch him play Little League and help him learn Algebra. I want to help with his book report on “To Kill a Mockingbird”. I know that I will never be able to do that, even with Jesus in my heart. I miss him so much. I did not know that anything could hurt so much.”

“I miss him too,” Mom said walking into the room and sitting down on the other side of me. She looked thin, but a small patch of color had returned to her eyes and cheeks. “I want to be able to touch him. I can feel Jesus. I know he is with us. How I want to touch him though,” Mom said. “I want to see his smile, hear his laugh. I keep catching glimpses of him dancing in the rain at your tenth birthday, Mary.”

“I’m sorry,” Dad whispered.

“I know it’s not your fault,” Mom reached over and rubbed Dad’s back. She let her fingers wander over his shoulders.

“I felt so helpless. Watching those doctors try all those different medicines and all I can do is watch and hope and pray. I can’t get the image out of my mind of seeing him lying in that big hospital bed, wasting away within those sheets. I just wanted to take him away from all that suffering but there was nothing I could do. Now I feel like it is all happening again. Only this time it is you whom I am losing,” Dad’s voice shook.

“I just knew from early on that I was going to lose him before I was ready. I just didn’t expect it to be this painful,” Mom explained. “I didn’t know that I was capable of feeling this…just so much sadness. It hurt so much that I thought that at any moment I might just cease to exist. Like my heart would simply refuse to go on beating. And not being able to help my little Marys, knowing that I was being so selfish focusing on my own anguish only made it worse, and the pain more unbearable. I thought like maybe if I lay still enough I might just disappear and then I would not have to deal with any of this pain.”

Little Mary walked into the room, rubbing at her eyes. She clumsily made her way across the room and climbed onto Mom’s lap.

“I’m thirsty,” Little Mary said.

Mom gave her a big hug and a kiss. Dad stood up from the couch and picked up the glass that sat on the coffee table. He dumped the brown drink into the sink and returned with a glass of water for Little Mary.

We sat on the sofa together deep into the night. A family once again, we found the strength to speak about the loss in our life. At one point the conversation changed from missing Jesus to remembering how much we loved him. Laughing together as we shared stories about how he lived his life. I knew that the sorrow was not over and that Jesus’ death would touch every day of my life. But talking about him brought some light into the darkness. And I am not sure exactly how I knew it but I just did; we would all be okay.

We would be okay because we had each other and because we carried Jesus in our hearts.

Goodbye

Jesus remained in the hospital for two weeks after we were first told that he had leukemia. The doctors gave Jesus medications that made him lose his hair and have diarrhea. He came home for a week and then he had to go back. On his second trip to the hospital Jesus stayed for only two days. He was discharged home again, this time with the idea that he would have to go back in four days to have his counts checked.

Counts had something to do with blood cells and they told us whether or not the cancer was leaving. If his counts were okay then he could stay home. If his counts were too low, he would have to go back in the hospital and be started on antibiotics. Regardless of his counts, he would have to go back in the hospital in three weeks for the next round of chemotherapy. Each time meant more needle sticks, more x-rays and less hair.

Each time Jesus went into the hospital, he lost more and more weight. I would joke with him saying, “Come on Jesus. Show us some backbone.” And he would turn around and bend over, revealing a protuberant spine. I told him we were going to have to strap one of Mom’s Christmas fruitcakes to his back or the wind would blow him away. He said he was afraid that if he farted he might shoot across the room and we both laughed at that one.

I loved Jesus when he would come to stay with us at home. We could all pretend that he had never gone into the hospital and that he was well. Jesus and I would color and paint and talk about how life would be when we were older. I told him that I would have one or two Marys of my own, maybe a son who I would name Joseph.

“When I get older there won’t be any more needle sticks or medications that burn my arm,” Jesus said.

Jesus scanned the floor searching for the right crayon. He had taken out a piece of paper and was coloring a blue sky over an apple tree. I could see that he just wanted to have a normal life.

Jesus went back and forth to the hospital for close to two months. Each time that he went there was more blood tests and long waits in a small room to see the doctor. The people who came to draw the blood wore long white coats and carried a tackle box full of needles. I could not figure out why God would make a world that require anyone to carry a box full of needles.

After two months of tests, hospitalizations and doctor visits the cancer was still there. The doctor said that Jesus' cancer was stubbornly aggressive. That was Jesus’ luck, to get a stubborn cancer. The doctor recommended that a surgeon place something called a port in him. At first Mom said no but after the doctor explained that it would save Jesus many sticks, she looked at his scrawny, bruised up arms and agreed.

The day they put the port into his chest, Jesus had to go to surgery. We were all sitting in a big waiting room with other children and worried parents when two tall men in long, white coats came and got Jesus. Jesus stood up and went with them without hesitation. As they walked him away I told Jesus that they were going to turn him into a cyborg and he laughed. "I'll be back," he said. Mom started to cry as soon as Jesus left the room.

After the surgery they moved Jesus into a glass cube in a special part of the hospital. The doctors said it would protect him from germs. When we were allowed to visit, Mom and Dad could go inside the cube but Mary and I had to look at Jesus through the window, like he was a hamster in an aquarium. I would have given him a big metal wheel to run on if he wasn’t already so weak from the cancer.

When God wasn’t looking, Little Mary and I made funny faces by curving our mouths and sticking our tongues out at him. Jesus would giggle and Dad would quickly turn around to see what we were doing but we had made our faces right again. I gave him a look as to say "what" and he would turn back to talk with Jesus.

Some days stick in your mind like a brand or a birthmark. Mom told us that they were moving Jesus to a new room on Wednesday, May 20th, where we could all stay and visit with him. At first Mary and I thought that the doctors must have been moving Jesus out of the class cube because he was getting better. We talked about how we were going to throw a big party for Jesus when he came home and invite all of our friends from school. Mary even said we should have another piñata but we would not let God put anything in the animal’s head.

The moment I saw him, those dreams all disappeared.

I would not have believed that it was possible but Jesus had become even more thin and weak. His cheeks sucked into his face. His eyes sunk into his skull and his lips were dry and chapped with blood. He had small, purple freckles all over his body. It was the first time that we could touch him in over three weeks. I longed to touch his fingers like in the sandbox when we reached through the two holes in the tunnel and tickled each other’s hands. He was my brother and for some reason he already felt like he was no longer here. I hated myself for feeling that way. I was afraid to be near him. He looked like a touch could break him.

Jesus looked at Dad and said that he didn’t want to have the sickness anymore. He said that he was tired. God told him that if he could take the sickness and carry it within him then he would. He also said that none of us are given anything that we cannot handle. Little Mary looked at me and said that she didn’t know who was giving out this stuff but that she didn’t want any of it and that she wished that they would just keep it to themselves. I agreed.

Two days later it was Friday and Little Mary and I woke up and started getting ready for school. I was pulling my hair into a scrunchie when Mom said that we could stay home from school. Little Mary asked why and Mom said that we were all going to sit and play with Jesus today. Little Mary and I were all excited because we had not gotten to play with him in over three weeks.

Mom made us dress in some of our best clothes and we had to fix our hair nice. Dad brought out the video camera and Mom shot him a glare that made him put it back. I was about to ask if I could bring Chutes and Ladders but thought better after seeing that look.

Mary and I were hoping that Jesus might be coming home. When we went into his room we didn’t have to wash special and nobody told us “not to touch” everything we saw like they usually did. The excitement continued to build within me until I saw Jesus.

Jesus had become a ghost of himself. He appeared tired and small. He looked like a balloon that had lost all its air. He laid there in bed, buried in all those big, white sheets. At first I thought that they must have put him into a huge double bed, but then realized that he had just gotten smaller. His arms were like uncooked noodles and the small, purple freckles on his skin had been replaced by purple splotches. He had black, dried blood staining his lips and a little around both his ears and nose. I wanted to cry the second I saw him but knew I couldn’t because then he would know that I was scared and that would make him feel bad.

Mom walked right over to him and bent over and kissed his forehead. He looked as though he could brake with any touch but her kiss brought a smile to his face. “Hi Mom,” she seemed to wake him up.

“Look honey, Mary and Little Mary are here too.” Mom tried to smile as she gestured in our direction.

Jesus looked at us and smiled. “Hi Jesus,” we said together with as much excitement as we could muster. Little Mary ran over and gave him a hug. “No, Mary,” I cried. “You might hurt him.”

My Dad’s gentle voice quieted my fear. “No, no, no Mary; it is okay. It is absolutely okay. You can go over and give your brother a kiss,” Dad said rubbing my head. “It’s okay, Jellybean.” He bent down close to me and pressed his palm steadily to my back. “Go give your brother a hug; I know he wants you to.”

I walked over and gave Jesus a hug and a kiss. He reached out and grabbed my hand. As we held together I could feel his little finger tickle my palm and when I looked up at him he had a smile on his face. Even with the sickness, I could still find glimpses of his bright spirit.

“I love you Mary,” he said.

“I love you too Jesus,” I said back.

Our eyes said “I missed you.”

We sat together for hours, sometimes talking, sometimes watching the television but mostly just looking at each other. At one point Mom suddenly startled to cry. She walked out of the room and stood right outside the door, we could hear her whimpering in the hallway.

I asked Dad if I could sit alone with Jesus and he said that he thought that would be all right. He picked up Little Mary and brought her out of the room with him.

I looked around the small hospital room not certain what I should do or what I should say. Everything looked too delicate, like it was no place for children. There were thin, metal poles with bottles hanging from hooks. Out of the bottom of the glass bottles emerged tubes that snaked into my brother’s arms. The tubes scared me. It had never been difficult to talk to Jesus. I walked over to the corner of the room and grabbed hold of the ribbon hanging down from a giant, mylar, Tweetee Bird balloon that floated in the corner. I pulled it down while saying, “I taught I taw a purty cat.”

Jesus ignored my forced attempt at humor. But still it cracked the ice because he asked “How’s school going?”

“Oh, school is school. John splashes anyone who walks close to the water fountain and Mary Magdalene keeps getting into trouble for kissing boys. I haven’t been too interested in class lately. Math and science seem to have lost their color. Everything seems so bland.”

“Like the food in here.”

“Yeah.

“Is Ned still squeaking?”

“Of course. Oh, and Sister Ellers says 'hey'.”

“Tell her I said hey back.”

Our conversation carried on in this strained fashion for a few minutes with neither of us saying anything of significance. It felt good to talk to him though, to have Jesus back in my life. I knew what I eventually had to ask him and that until I did that we weren’t going to be able to talk. Really talk like brother and sister and the best friends that we had always been. But I needed to put it off a little longer. Eventually I came around to it.

“Jesus,” I said, “why can’t you just take that cancer out of you?” I fought to suppress my tears. I had cried so much over the last few months that I thought that there could not possibly be any more inside of me. Each day, however, I found new tears. “I mean why can’t you just make yourself better and then we can take you home and everything will be back to like it was.”

“I don’t know, Mary. I dream that I am better. I make up these stories in my mind where the doctor comes in and says that they were mistaken and that everything is okay. They pull the needles and tubes out and send me home, the whole staff apologizing for their mistake. I tell them that it’s no problem and I’m just glad they figured it out before they killed me. I rewind these dreams and play then over and over again. But each time that the doctor comes in he just listens to my heart and my lungs and asks me how I feel today and then walks out. He doesn't know how to heal me either.” Jesus shrugged his shoulders. "I think maybe that I have other things that I must do and this body is not the one for me to do them in."

I immediately wanted to change the subject. Go back to talking about nothing. It was safer. “Dad says you are an acorn and are going to grow into a giant tree.”

“Sweet. I always wanted to be an oak. With my luck, somebody might cut me down and make a floor out of me.”

“Or a toilet seat.”

“I miss hearing Dad tell stories,” Jesus said. “When I first had to stay in the hospital he used to sit up with me at night and tell me all about creating the world. Each night it was a different animal or plant or rock. He told me how he made bunnies and gave the girl bunnies big feet so they could push the boy bunnies away. He gave snails slime so they could always find their way home.”

“Are you afraid to die,” I asked him. I don’t know where it came from. The words burst out of me and then I wished that I could take them back but it was too late.

Jesus was unfazed by my outburst. “I used to be very afraid. Now it seems muted. I am so tired that it seems like it might be a relief. What I fear most is being away from you and Mom and Dad and Little Mary. I’m not sure what it will be like and I don’t quite understand why this is happening to me.” Jesus looked at the plastic tube sticking into his chest.

“God told me that I would be okay and I believe him,” he said trying to find some reason for something that appeared to have none. “Dad said that each person has an important place in this world and whether we are here for three minutes or ninety years, our impact can be great,” Jesus said.

“Jesus, I don’t understand you. I don’t understand how you can talk this way,” I told him.

Jesus scanned the room and focused on Dad outside the glass doors of his room. I followed his gaze. Dad was holding Little Mary and telling her a story, probably about how he created glass as a liquid in order to confuse humans. “Dad is not the God that people pray to in church; at least I hope that he is not." We both laughed. "However, I do know that I am both his and God’s son just as you are his and God’s daughter. Don’t you think that there must be a connection?” I shrugged my shoulders. “Don’t you think that there is a reason why Dad is our father? He had a part in all of this and I would have never been able to realize my own role in this world without him. Maybe his part was to help me accept my cancer by smothering us with crazy ideas. Maybe with a different father I would feel more terror. I don’t know.”

Jesus and I looked out through the glass wall as a food service worker walked up and Dad preceded to get in an argument about getting some Fruit Loops for his son. He noticed our stares and put one hand towards his face, puffing out his cheeks and making his mouth wide with the aid of his pinky and thumb. With his index finger he pushed his nose up like that of a pig and with his other hand he waved. The food service lady walked off shaking her head and talking to herself leaving Jesus and me to laugh out loud, only not at what Dad thought we were.

“I want you to be in the future,” I said, “to experience it with me.”

“I will, Mary. I will always be with you. I guess just not in this shell,” Jesus picked at the loose skin on his chest. “As you go forward you will feel my presence because I will always be with you, in your heart. And wherever I’m going, I will have you in my heart."

I began to cry. I didn’t want to but the tears wouldn’t stay away any longer. “I don’t understand, Jesus.”

“You will.”

I hugged Jesus and the tears eventually stopped flowing. We talked about our favorite candy (Looney Toon Crunch) that Jesus could not taste because his mouth had lost the ability. We talked about Mom and Dad and Little Mary, playing in the sand, building forts, sledding in the winter and a million other things that last moments but stay with you for a lifetime. I hoped Jesus would be like that. Mainly, we just sat in the room together feeling each other’s presence. Jesus was the closest person in the world to me and on that day I learned that he would always be, no matter how distant our physical bodies traveled.

Mary came running in with a miniature box of Fruit Loops. “Had to pull some strings, son, but I was able to get those for you. After all I am...” Dad’s words trailed off.

“Dad, you can have them,” Jesus said, “but you are going to have to get your own milk.”

“I can have them. Are you sure, son? I mean well…if you insist. Wow, look at this,” Dad reached into his coat pocket, “just happen to have a carton of milk right here and a spoon.”

Dad sat down next to Jesus and ate the Fruitloops. Dad scooped the cereal into his mouth and in the quiet of the hospital room the crunch of the cereal seemed inordinately loud. I caught Jesus’ eyes and we laughed.

We played a game of Ker Plunk and as usual Dad collected the most marbles. We figured he needed them; he was obviously missing a few.

The day slid by us and we came upon the time that we would typically be leaving. Mom and Dad made no moves to depart so Mary and I settled close to Jesus to play a game of cards.

Jesus also realized that we were not leaving and he grabbed hold of Dad’s hands. He said, “Dad, I am scared.” His body quivered slightly under the sheets.

“I know son,” Dad said back to him. “It’s okay to be scared. We are all here with you. It will be okay.”

Mom sat down on the bed next to Jesus and stroked his head. She leaned in close to him and whispered, “You will always be a star in our sky, shining down upon all of us.” Mom kissed Jesus and told him how proud she was of him and how much she loved him.

“Dad, I don’t want to die. I don’t know what it will be like. If there’s anyway you can make this pass, please let it,” Jesus pleaded. “Please make it go away.”

“I can’t change it son," God said. "If I could take your cancer into my body I would. I wish I could. Jesus, we will always be near. You will never be alone. Try not to be scared; all of us will always be with you. You will feel us closer than ever before.”

Dad started to cry and it was like a cold going around the room. Soon Mom, Little Mary and I were also crying. Dad told Jesus that he felt so lucky to have such a great son and then didn’t say anything more. I didn’t know that all that sadness could be in one person.

Jesus fell asleep shortly afterwards. I sat near him and held his hand. I said, "I love you Jesus." He slept calmly.

It was close to three in the afternoon when Jesus died. He was lying in bed sleeping. His eyes had been closed for at least twenty minutes. He was taking slow, deep breaths that seemed peaceful. I watched those breaths, every one of them and had gotten to counting them, starting over with each passing minute. Jesus was now taking just eight breaths each minute. He breathed out and I said “One”. Time passed and he sucked in a second gasp, which came out a few seconds later. “Two,” I counted to myself. Then he took in a third breath and I got ready to say three.

But it never came out.