The Second Coming (18 page)

“What can I do?” Mike’s mom asked with a cracking voice.

“Not much, I’m afraid. We’re doing all we can do to save him. I think the only thing you can do is pray for him and talk to him.”

“Can I go see him?”

“Of course, but I have to warn you that it is going to be very hard for you to see him in this condition.”

chapter
33

M
IKE’S MOM TOOK
a deep breath and closed her eyes as she clicked open the pale mechanical door to Mike’s hospital room and slowly pushed it open. She was not prepared for the heart aching shock that engulfed her when she heard the monitor beeping and the long, heavy sucking and exhaling of the ventilator. Her body shuddered as she hesitantly opened her eyes.

Lying on the bed, across the shadowy room, hooked up to tubes and monitors and an IV bag, was her only son; her baby. Her chin began to quiver and uncontrollably spread to her lips and cheeks until her entire face was vibrating. She gasped as she held her hand gently to her lips and whimpered.

She approached the bed holding out hope that it was not her little boy lying there dying. At first, through her blurry glare, she did not recognize his face with the white bandage wrapped around his head and the tubes taped to his nose and mouth. It didn’t look like her son and for a brief moment she thought there must have been some terrible mistake. Quietly she moved closer to the body tucked under the covers. Maybe it wasn’t him? Then she saw the familiar dimple in his chin and the little hope she had was replaced by a sinking empathy in the bottom of her stomach. She began to sob softly as she reached out and touched his rigid hand carefully above where a tube was inserted into a vein.

This was her baby; her only child. He meant the world to her. In the back of her mind, she always knew that this could happen to him. Mike was a daredevil as a kid and a risk taker as a young man, with no regard for the consequence of his actions. But even after all the visits to the hospital for broken bones, concussions and stitches, she never imagined herself weeping at his deathbed.

Mike was always a challenging, if not difficult child, even in labor. He was a breech baby and took hours to deliver after the doctor finally got him turned around. After he was safely delivered and she held him in her arms, she told herself that he was special and worth the pain. It was a common theme that would be repeated throughout her life; all the sleepless nights she spent worrying about him when he didn’t come home or so much as call to tell her where he was. It was the not knowing if he was alright that was the hardest on her. When he would show up the next day she would always thank God and would be so happy that he was home safe that she would forgive the anguish he caused her the night before. She told herself that she had to accept him the way he was. There was nothing she or her husband could do to change him.

They tried everything from restricting him to home, to taking his car away and Mike would behave for a while, but there was something inherently mischievous in him and he would soon be at his old ways again.

He was a selfish, self absorbed boy, who, when she would ask the next day why he didn’t call to tell them where he was, would simply say that he got carried away and forgot himself and that was the thing she worried about the most.

As she knelt next to his bed with her head resting on her hands that clutched his stiff hand, she began to sob inconsolably.

Why did it have to be like this? Hadn’t he been through enough hardship or was this just the culmination of cheating death one too many times? How could God do this to her again? What did she do to deserve all of this pain and suffering? First her husband, the love of her life, her soul mate, committed suicide leaving her old and alone in what were supposed to be their glory years. And now her son, the only living person she truly loved, was going to be taken away from her as well? It was too much for her to take. There would be no point in living if Mike was gone.

Mrs. McCormick pulled a wood chair over to Mike’s bed side and sat down. At first she was uncomfortable and didn’t know what to say. And then she reached for his hand and began to talk.

“Hi sweetheart. It’s your Mother,” she said feeling strangely uncomfortable. “I hope you can hear me baby,” she said with a tremor in her voice as she gently rubbed his hand. “I don’t want you to leave me. I need you here. I can’t live without you and you have too much to live for. Don’t
leave me like your father did. I carry enough guilt from him taking his life. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about what I could have done that would have prevented your father from killing himself. I should have been more supportive,” she said reflectively shaking her head. “I didn’t even know he was depressed. How could I have been so self absorbed not to have seen that?” She wondered out loud with eyes of astonishment. “I wasn’t there for him when he needed me the most. It’s my fault. I could have prevented it if I had only been there for him,” she took a deep breath and exhaled, sitting up straight in her chair. “I won’t make that mistake again. I am here for you baby and I’m not going anywhere until you come back to me,” she paused and rubbed her hand on his face. “I love you so much. I need you to come home.”

And then all at once a flood of memories that she had not recalled in she didn’t know how long, filled her mind like an overflowing glass of milk, spilling out as she fondly shared them with Mike’s comatose body with a smile of comfort. The more stories she told him, the more her heart filled with melancholy.

She explained to him that he wasn’t always a bad child. In fact, in all of her early memories, he was a very pleasant and friendly child. It wasn’t until he went to school that the trouble began and even then he maintained a pleasing disposition, but for whatever reason, he seemed to gravitate towards trouble.

The more memories and stories she spoke in the quiet whispers of Mike’s hollow hospital room, the more she realized with relief and joy in heart that most of them were very happy ones. The traumatic and trying times were few and far between and as she looked back on them, she realized in the grand scheme of the events that defined his life, they were insignificant. All of the things he did throughout his life, not just the bad or just the good, defined who he was as a person. If he was always a good, well behaved child, he would’ve lived a boring life and if he was nothing but a difficult, unpleasant child, she would not have the love she felt for him glowing in her heart.

No; quite to the contrary. She realized he lived a full, exciting life and that there were too many memories yet to be made in the years to come. She was emboldened by this realization and was determined not to allow her last memory of her only son to be that of him dying in a hospital bed.

“Please come back home to your mother Mike,” she pleaded with him as if she was talking about someone else. “She needs you so bad. She wants to see you get married and watch her grandchildren grow up to be fine adults like yourself. Don’t leave her by herself. She loves you too much.”

chapter
34

F
ATHER
J
OHN TRUDGED
up the stairs towards his father’s room wondering how close to death he really was. Did his dad have something that he was waiting to tell him and after he told him, would he then feel at peace and die? What was it that he wanted to tell him? Did he forgive Father John for walking away from his search for illumination and for falling in love with Arianna or was he going to disavow him?

Father John got to the top of the staircase, turned down the narrow hallway and stared at the closed door at the end of it. What did his father say in the letter he wrote to him that Arianna responded to? What was so important that he broke his silence?

He slowly walked down the hall to the ever distant door. When his father received the reply from Arianna that Father John left to continue his search for enlightenment, he must have realized his love affair with her was part of his journey and been pleased that he was moving forward. He couldn’t disavow him now that he was on the path to enlightenment again.

As Father John hesitantly reached for the door knob, he realized what happened in the past didn’t matter anymore. He would make amends with his dad. All that mattered now was that his father’s last days were peaceful. As he quietly opened the door, he knew with a clenched heart that he was visiting his father on his deathbed.

The room was dim with a faint smell of antiseptic and urine. His father lay motionless with an oxygen mask over his ashen face. His body was shriveled and barely made a noticeable ruffle in the covers, like someone lazily left the sheets crumpled after getting out of bed. There were prescription bottles on the side table next to his bed and an IV drip stuck in his frail
arm. Father John’s heart sunk with despair. He couldn’t believe how much his father had aged since he last saw him at his graduation.

His father had been an imposing man with a rugged jaw, sharp nose and ridged eyes. He was so proud of Father John when he graduated from Baylor University with honors in religious studies and philosophy, but even more proud that he was leaving to go live with the aesthetic monks in the Himalayans to learn from the great masters. It was his father’s dream that Father John follow his path to enlightenment. He always told him he had a destiny and Father John always wondered what he meant by that.

“One day you will know why everything in your life happened,” he told him with beaming eyes. “You will know the end from the beginning.”

Father John pulled a Queen Anne style chair from the wall next to his father’s bed and quietly sat down. He looked at the old man with admiration and wished that he had spent more time with him as an adult. He felt as though he didn’t even really know him. What type of man was he? He knew what type of father he was, but he wondered what type of man he would have been if he met him as a stranger on his travels. Would he have been the type of person Father John would have been impressed with and want to spend time with?

He reached his hand out, gently placing it on his father’s concaved chest and he could feel that his heart was weathered and that he didn’t have long to live. There was so much that he wanted to tell him about his journey and he knew there wasn’t enough time. His father’s head stirred and he blinked lazily as he gazed at Father John with dark, glassy eyes.

“I knew you would come home,” he muttered from under his face mask with a raspy voice and a smirk of approval. “I knew you wouldn’t let me die without saying goodbye.”

“I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long,” Father John said as his eyes welled with tears.

“Seventeen years isn’t too long,” his father replied as he reached his trembling hand out. Father John took his boney hand and leaned over, kissing him tenderly on forehead.

“I’ve missed you,” he said with a waiver in his voice and a lump in his throat as he sat back down next to his bed. “I wish I came home sooner.”

His father smiled affectionately as he reached up and fumbled with his oxygen mask. Father John reached over and gently pulled the elastic band
from around the back of his head and set the mask on his chest. “You are always with me right here,” his father told him in a raspy whisper as he feebly patted the pajama pocket over his heart. “What have you learned all these years you were away?”

Father John paused and reflected. He couldn’t possibly tell him about his dreams of divine intervention and all of the lives he saved or about the dreams he was now having of raping and stabbing innocent young ladies. There was no way his father would understand in his current condition and Father John didn’t have the time to explain it all to him. It was too complex. He didn’t even fully understand what was happening himself.

“I have learned much from many wise people,” he replied with a hint of irony in his voice.

“That is good,” his father said squinting with discern. “What seems to be troubling you?”

Father John let out a sigh as he shook his head. “No matter how much I learn, I still don’t feel that I am any closer to becoming enlightened.”