Point of No Return (11 page)

George insisted on staying at the hospital—at his mother's side—if they would let him. But he gave Mary, Donna, and Jimmy the okay to leave for a while. Mary and Donna decided to go to the mall. Faced with the prospect of shopping for clothes with his mother and sister or watching TV in the waiting room, Jimmy opted for the TV. Besides, he was curious about what his grandmother wanted to say to him and didn't want to miss the chance to talk if she woke up.

An hour or so later—after Jimmy had sampled one of the dried chocolate cupcakes in the vending machine and watched all he could stand of the TV soap operas—his dad came back. “She's awake,” he said. “She wants to talk to you.”

Jimmy leapt to his feet.

“Now, son, don't do anything to excite her, all right? Take it easy.”

“Okay,” Jimmy said. He followed his dad back through the corridors to his grandmother's room. When they reached the door, George gestured for Jimmy to go in and walked away toward the nurses' station.

She looked better this time. Someone had brushed her hair, and she was propped up in a way that made it appear as if she were at home in bed with a book. Jimmy smiled at her as he rounded the bed. She smiled wearily back to him. “Hi, Jimmy,” she said in the same distant voice he'd heard before. It was her voice, but it seemed to come from another place.

“Hi, Grandma,” Jimmy said. “How're you feeling?”

“Awful, but I'll get over it,” she said, chuckling. “How are you doing?”

“Okay,” he said.

She patted the mattress as a signal for him to come closer. “I mean, how are you doing now that you've met Jesus?”

Jimmy was puzzled. “I asked Him into my heart, Grandma,” he said. “But it doesn't feel like I really met Him.”

“Those feelings will come,” she said. “Keep your faith and the feelings usually follow.”

“Is that what you wanted to tell me?” Jimmy asked.

Grandma closed her eyes as if she felt a deep pain somewhere. Then she opened them again. “I have so much to tell you. I wish we had years. I would love to…to see you grow up in your faith.”

“You will, Grandma. We're praying for you!” Jimmy said.

“Good,” she said, her voice raspy and broken. “Pray hard. Not because I'll get better, but because you should pray. Learn to talk to God, Jimmy. Talk to Him all the time. He's listening. He's always listening. Things won't always work out the way you want, but He's always there. He knows what's best.”

Jimmy leaned forward, his elbows pressing into the mattress. “You have to get better, Grandma. It wouldn't be fair for you to leave me right after I became a Christian.” He paused as the full reality of the situation came to him. She was going to die and leave him. “I need you.”

Grandma turned her head so she could look Jimmy in the eyes. For a moment, her eyes seemed as bright and clear as when she was healthy—the way Jimmy always remembered her. “You don't need me,” she said firmly. “You need Jesus.”

“But Jesus isn't here,” he said. “And I don't have anybody else.”

“You have your family. You have your church. You have friends— some you haven't even met yet. Jesus is in them.” She raised a finger and pointed at Jimmy's chest. “You have Him in there.”

“But it isn't fair. I didn't know it was going to be this hard.”

She coughed and grabbed Jimmy's hand. “Fair has nothing to do it with it. Look at me, Jimmy. Nobody said the Christian life was fair—or easy. Nothing in this world is fair or easy. Growing old and dying of cancer isn't fair or easy. But God is good.”

She gasped and lay back with her eyes closed. She still had hold of Jimmy's hand. He waited, worried she might die right then and there.

A minute passed, and she opened her eyes again. She whispered, “You want to meet Jesus? Well, sometimes the Lord has to strip everything away from us before we can truly meet Him. And sometimes it really hurts. I felt it when your grandfather died, then my brothers and sisters, then my friends…and then my own body stopped working a little at a time. It's the Lord's way of getting me to pay attention. He's taking it all away from me so He can give it back in a newer, more wonderful way. It's like He gives us a good, hard scrubbing—and it hurts a little—so we'll be cleaned up to see Him face-to-face.” She squeezed Jimmy's hand. “You see, He strips it away
here
so He can give it back to me nice and new
there
.”

A chill ran up and down Jimmy's spine. Those were the same words Dave had used the night Jimmy said yes to Jesus. It led to a new life for Jimmy. In a strange way, Jimmy now understood how it would lead to a new life for his grandmother—a new life in that other place where God lives. But it still meant she would leave him, and he didn't want that. Not now, not yet.

“Oh, Jimmy,” his grandmother said, and he saw a small tear slip from her eye and slide down her temple. “I'm so happy for you…all the adventures you have ahead of you. I'll be watching….”

She closed her eyes again. Her grip on Jimmy's hand relaxed completely—and let go.

That evening, Jimmy, Donna, and Mary had dinner at a restaurant with Uncle Donald and Aunt Gwen, George's younger brother and sister. They had arrived that afternoon. Jimmy's dad insisted they should go while he stayed at the hospital, as long as they promised to bring him back something to eat. Since Uncle Donald, Aunt Gwen, and their families rarely came to Odyssey, they had the usual conversation about how big the kids had gotten and how they were doing in school and what the adults liked or didn't like about their jobs. Jimmy zoned out. He thought about his grandmother and once again prayed that God would let her live.

Toward the end of the meal, Mary realized she hadn't asked George what he wanted her to bring back for him. She excused herself and went to the pay phone. Jimmy and Uncle Donald exchanged knowing looks as Aunt Gwen and Donna started talking about hairstyles. The minutes ticked away. Jimmy glanced over at the pay phone just in time to see his mother hang up the receiver and wipe tears from her eyes.

Jimmy knew.

Mary reached the table and put on the brave face that Jimmy had seen at other times when there was bad news. “I'm so sorry,” she said, choking back the tears. “Grandma died 10 minutes ago.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Friday and Saturday

O
VER THE NEXT TWO DAYS
, Jimmy battled more against boredom than against grief. George, Donald, and Gwen made arrangements at the funeral home. Distant family members came to the house, cried, and left again. Errands were run. Members of Grandma's church brought food. Friends dropped in to pay their respects.

Amid all the activity, Jimmy didn't have anything to do. He tried to watch television on Grandma's portable black-and-white, but she didn't have cable, and the aerial only picked up three snowy channels. He made an effort to finish his homework, but the buzz of activity distracted him. And there was nowhere to go in the middle of a retirement village.

Friday evening arrived, and Mary handed Jimmy his Easter suit from last year. He didn't even know she had packed it—and only then realized that she had because she had known Grandma would die.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“The viewing,” she replied.

“Viewing?”

Mary explained that it was a time for everyone to see Grandma in the coffin at the funeral home—a time to offer comfort to the family and to say good-bye to Grandma. “Don't you remember when your grandfather died?” she asked.

Jimmy didn't. He was just five years old when that happened and had only the vaguest memory of black suits and a long, black hearse at a graveyard.

The funeral home smelled like flowers. So did the funeral director. He took Jimmy's hand in a cold grip and shook it while he said in a soft, deep voice how sorry he was about “Victoria's passing.”

Dad guided Jimmy, Donna, and Mary into a cozy room with dim lighting and chairs, lamps, and tables that looked as if they belonged in somebody's house. Near the wall on the far end of the room sat a long, brown coffin. Grandma's head was barely visible above the shiny box and lacy linen it rested on. Donna froze in her steps. “I can't go,” she cried.

Mary hugged her and took her aside. “Whenever you're ready, Donna,” she said. “It's okay.”

George looked at Jimmy. “Do you want to wait?” he asked.

“No,” Jimmy said. “Let's go.”

George and Jimmy approached the coffin. At first, Jimmy thought someone had made a mistake. It wasn't his grandmother. But he looked closer and realized it was. She looked as though somebody had done a bad job of making a wax mannequin of her. Her hair was all wrong. Her eyes looked painted closed. Her lips were stretched too tight.

“It doesn't look like her,” Jimmy whispered to his dad.

George put his hand on Jimmy's shoulder. “In a way, it's not really her,” he said. “This is just an empty shell where she used to be.”

Jimmy carefully studied the face in the coffin.
An empty shell where she used to be.
Her hands were folded across her waist. Jimmy reached up and touched them. Waxy and cold. All life had gone to another place— that place where God lives. And for a moment, Jimmy imagined her rushing into the arms of his grandfather, shaking hands with all those friends who'd left her, and turning to see the One she longed to see face-to-face.

Jimmy patted her hand and asked Jesus to say hello to her for him.

The funeral service on Saturday was a strange mixture of joy and tears. It was as if they couldn't make up their minds how they felt, Jimmy thought later. One minute a pastor was talking about the joy of going home. The next minute, family and friends wept as they said how much they'd miss Grandma and her wonderful sense of humor, her faith, her love, or her homemade cookies.

George got up and captured what Jimmy felt most when he said, “Our loss is heaven's gain. For those of us who know Jesus, we can be assured that this isn't good-bye, but simply ‘Until we meet again.' ”

Jimmy cried when he heard that and felt a flood of grief rise up within and pour out of his eyes. Grandma was gone. Gone for good. He couldn't stop crying until they drove to the grave site and threw flowers onto the coffin as it was lowered into the ground.

After that, Jimmy brooded that it still wasn't fair. Now that he was a Christian, it would've made a lot more sense for God to let his grandmother live so she could help him. He still didn't know what to do about Tony. He didn't know about a lot of things. His mood sank into self-pity. He'd only been a Christian for a week, and he had probably lost his best friend and definitely his grandmother. What else could go wrong?

He fought with Donna in the car on the way home. She was listening to music with her old headphones. Jimmy thought the tinny guitars and drums that leaked from her ears would drive him nuts. He jerked at the headphones and told Donna to turn down the volume. She told him to lay off and pushed him away. He pushed her back. They yelled at each other.

Dad pulled the car over to the side of the road. “Stop it!” he shouted at them. “This is tough enough without you two acting like babies!”

The harshness of his voice brought wide-eyed silence from Jimmy, Donna, and even Mary.

Dad turned away from them, lowered his head onto the steering wheel, and let the tears flow. Mary moved close to him, put her arm around his back, leaned her head against his shoulder, and cried with him. It struck Jimmy that he hadn't seen his dad cry at the hospital, the funeral home, or even Grandma's house.

“I'm sorry,” George said. And he kept crying.

Donna glared at Jimmy and whispered, “See what you've done!”

Jimmy felt awful for being so selfish.
What else could go wrong?
he asked himself again.
Nothing
, he answered.
This is as bad as it gets
.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN